BREAKING: Mitt Romney Urged Obama to Embrace the Individual Mandate

[Mr. Shaman]

So Obama and Romney are the same, huh?? So why not vote for the guy with some business experience rather than a community organizer??

.....'Cause, the guy with some business experience keeps changing his mind....and, we're already on the right track.

Gimme a "DUH!!"

 

[paulitician]

Both Obama and Romney are wrong. The Mandate is Unconstitutional. Period, end of story.

 

[paulitician]

So Obama and Romney are the same, huh?? So why not vote for the guy with some business experience rather than a community organizer??

.....'Cause, the guy with some business experience keeps changing his mind....and, we're already on the right track.

Gimme a "DUH!!"

Yeah, cause your Dear Leader never changes his mind. Seriously, put down the crayons and grow up.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Florida
MASSACRE!!!!​

"Floridians who buy health insurance without the help of an employer can expect estimated rebates of $143 to $949 in August because of the federal health care overhaul.

About 157,000 individuals and families qualify. In addition, an estimated $65 million in health insurance rebates are in line to be split among workers covered at 352,000 small businesses, the Sun Sentinel found by analyzing reports filed this month by 15 of the largest insurers in Florida."

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Both Obama and Romney are wrong. The Mandate is Unconstitutional. Period, end of story.

As usual, you're......

....Wrooooonnng, AGAIN.....

.....Skippy!!!!

.

.

.

.

 

[Katzndogz]

Both Obama and Romney are wrong. The Mandate is Unconstitutional. Period, end of story.

Obama is wrong because his mandate is federal. Romeny is right because it is a matter of state's rights.

 

[Greenbeard]

“I would not mandate at the federal level that every state do what we do, but what I would say at the federal level is we’ll keep giving you these special payments we make if you adopt plans that get everybody insured. I want to get everybody insured.

All we have to do is tie the award of federal monies to implementation of state-level mandates (or some equivalent) and we've achieved bipartisan consensus? Hot damn, that's easy enough.

Given the praise he's heaped on Wyden-Bennett in the past, it's not at all clear that Romney really has some deep-seated philosophical abhorrence to federal mandates, but financial "encouragement" on the part of the feds for state-level mandates would probably work well enough. Go get 'em, Mittens!

 

[dblack]

“I would not mandate at the federal level that every state do what we do, but what I would say at the federal level is we’ll keep giving you these special payments we make if you adopt plans that get everybody insured. I want to get everybody insured.

All we have to do is tie the award of federal monies to implementation of state-level mandates (or some equivalent) and we've achieved bipartisan consensus? Hot damn, that's easy enough.

Given the praise he's heaped on Wyden-Bennett in the past, it's not at all clear that Romney really has some deep-seated philosophical abhorrence to federal mandates, but financial "encouragement" on the part of the feds for state-level mandates would probably work well enough. Go get 'em, Mittens!

Exactly. As long as the insurance companies get their money! This is why I'm convinced - even if you believe his state's rights line - that Romney is fundamentally no different that Obama and why most Republicans are no different than Democrats.

 

[Soulless65]

Exactly. As long as the insurance companies get their money! This is why I'm convinced - even if you believe his state's rights line - that Romney is fundamentally no different that Obama and why most Republicans are no different than Democrats.

Preach on my brother preach

 

[Quantum Windbag]

BREAKING: Mitt Romney Urged Obama to Embrace the Individual Mandate
Red State ^ | March 2, 2012 | Erick Erickson

BREAKING: Mitt Romney Urged Obama to Embrace the Individual Mandate | RedState
Had Michigan not been as close, the Democrats would have waited to spring this on us in the general election. Luckily we have it now and I hope Ohio voters are paying attention.

In July 2009, Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed in USA Today urging Barack Obama to usean individual mandate at the national level to control healthcare costs.

On the campaign trail now, Mitt Romney says the individual mandate is appropriate for Massachusetts, but not the nation. Repeatedly in debates, Romney has said he opposes a national individual mandate.

But back in 2009, as Barack Obama was formulating his healthcare vision for the country, Mitt Romney encouraged him publicly to use an individual mandate. In his op-ed, Governor Romney suggested that the federal government learn from Massachusetts how to make healthcare available for all.


(Excerpt) Read more at redstate.com ...



The op-ed no longer appears on the USA Today website but is archived on the Mitt Romney fan site "Mitt Romney Central" and is accessible on the former Governor's old website via the web archive.


Health care cannot be handled the same way as the stimulus and cap-and-trade bills. With those, the president stuck to the old style of lawmaking: He threw in every special favor imaginable, ground it up and crammed it through a partisan Democratic Congress. Health care is simply too important to the economy, to employment and to America's families to be larded up and rushed through on an artificial deadline. There's a better way. And the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it.

Romney continues further down in the op-ed bringing up the individual mandate dreaded by conservatives.


Our experience also demonstrates that getting every citizen insured doesn't have to break the bank. First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages "free riders" to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others. This doesn't cost the government a single dollar. Second, we helped pay for our new program by ending an old one — something government should do more often. The federal government sends an estimated $42 billion to hospitals that care for the poor: Use those funds instead to help the poor buy private insurance, as we did.


Mitt Romney's Advice For ObamaCare: Look At RomneyCare

does anyone on the left know how to read? Can you show me the part of ObamaCare that uses tax penalties to encourage individuals to buy insurance?

How about where Obama actually took some time to go over all the alternatives and think them through, and not cram some mixed up bag of crap that was so bad that the parts that were specifically designed to buy off states were rejected by those states?

Didn't think so.

 

[Vidi]

So Obama and Romney are the same, huh?? So why not vote for the guy with some business experience rather than a community organizer?? Shouldn't matter, right??

Well except debt is out of control. I think we need to bring our debt down to a manageable level.

Because its the House of Represenatives that runs the "business" of government, not the President, it does matter.

 

[Vidi]

BREAKING: Mitt Romney Urged Obama to Embrace the Individual Mandate
Red State ^ | March 2, 2012 | Erick Erickson

BREAKING: Mitt Romney Urged Obama to Embrace the Individual Mandate | RedState
Had Michigan not been as close, the Democrats would have waited to spring this on us in the general election. Luckily we have it now and I hope Ohio voters are paying attention.

In July 2009, Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed in USA Today urging Barack Obama to usean individual mandate at the national level to control healthcare costs.

On the campaign trail now, Mitt Romney says the individual mandate is appropriate for Massachusetts, but not the nation. Repeatedly in debates, Romney has said he opposes a national individual mandate.

But back in 2009, as Barack Obama was formulating his healthcare vision for the country, Mitt Romney encouraged him publicly to use an individual mandate. In his op-ed, Governor Romney suggested that the federal government learn from Massachusetts how to make healthcare available for all.


(Excerpt) Read more at redstate.com ...



The op-ed no longer appears on the USA Today website but is archived on the Mitt Romney fan site "Mitt Romney Central" and is accessible on the former Governor's old website via the web archive.


Health care cannot be handled the same way as the stimulus and cap-and-trade bills. With those, the president stuck to the old style of lawmaking: He threw in every special favor imaginable, ground it up and crammed it through a partisan Democratic Congress. Health care is simply too important to the economy, to employment and to America's families to be larded up and rushed through on an artificial deadline. There's a better way. And the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it.

Romney continues further down in the op-ed bringing up the individual mandate dreaded by conservatives.


Our experience also demonstrates that getting every citizen insured doesn't have to break the bank. First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages "free riders" to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others. This doesn't cost the government a single dollar. Second, we helped pay for our new program by ending an old one — something government should do more often. The federal government sends an estimated $42 billion to hospitals that care for the poor: Use those funds instead to help the poor buy private insurance, as we did.


Mitt Romney's Advice For ObamaCare: Look At RomneyCare

does anyone on the left know how to read? Can you show me the part of ObamaCare that uses tax penalties to encourage individuals to buy insurance?

How about where Obama actually took some time to go over all the alternatives and think them through, and not cram some mixed up bag of crap that was so bad that the parts that were specifically designed to buy off states were rejected by those states?

Didn't think so.

They don't call it a tax penalty. They call it a fine. But money out of your pocket is money out of your pocket no matter what they label it.

Most people will never notice the mandate, as they get insurance through their employer and that's good enough for the government. But of those who aren't exempt and aren't insured, the choice will be this: Purchase insurance or pay a small fine. In 2016, the first year the fine is fully in place, it will be $695 a year or 2.5 percent of income, whichever is higher. That makes the mandate progressive.

The irony of the mandate is that it's been presented as a terribly onerous tax on decent, hardworking people who don't want to purchase insurance. In reality, it's the best deal in the bill: A cynical consumer would be smart to pay the modest penalty rather than pay thousands of dollars a year for insurance. In the current system, that's a bad idea because insurers won't let them buy insurance if they get sick later. In the reformed system, there's no consequence for that behavior. You could pay the penalty for five years and then buy insurance the day you felt a lump.

Luckily, consumers aren't usually that cynical, and the experience of places such as Massachusetts suggests that individual mandates encourage people to buy insurance even when it might make sense for people to simply pay the penalty. But for all the furor over the individual mandate, the danger in the bill is much more that it is too weak and too good a deal than that it is too strong and too punitive a tax.

Ezra Klein - How does the individual mandate work?

The reality is...without the mandate, the affordable care act will bankrupt private health insurance companies, forcing the government to step in and provide government run health insurance. If the right wants to stop it, SCOTUS will have to strike down the whole thing. If they only strike down the mandate, socialized medicine is an inevitability.

 

[TheGreatGatsby]

I read the OP and I didn't see where Romney was supposed to have called for a national mandate.

 

[Vidi]

I read the OP and I didn't see where Romney was supposed to have called for a national mandate.

Not you too?

The entire op-ed is Mittney outlining how what worked in Massechusetts can work for the nation. He's telling Obama to do what he did. Only because the federal government has more power, Mittney is saying that the Feds can actually "slow or stop medical inflation"

There's a better way. And the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it.

 

[TheGreatGatsby]

I read the OP and I didn't see where Romney was supposed to have called for a national mandate.

Not you too?

The entire op-ed is Mittney outlining how what worked in Massechusetts can work for the nation. He's telling Obama to do what he did. Only because the federal government has more power, Mittney is saying that the Feds can actually "slow or stop medical inflation"

There's a better way. And the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it.

Yes and he pointed to other things like tax credits. He never advocated a national federal mandate. I challenge you to show me where he did that. You can't just make shiz up to suit your political whims.

 

[Dick Tuck]

Mr. Etch-a-Sketch was right. A mandate was needed to avoid the people for paying for healthcare for freeloaders.

And are you willing to stand behind this logic for any and every contingency that might result in a public expense; the burial insurance mandate, for example? Should we be insured against any potential expense that we might incur that the state might feel compelled to pay on our behalf? Or, to ask the question that the Court is surely wrestling with, is there ANY limiting principle on this notion? It seems to me to open a broad new category of so-called "responsibility" that would require us to "pre-pay" for a wide variety of potential outcomes. Is that really how we want society to work?

Oooh, a slippery slope red herring argument. We're talking about the mandate for all Americans to have health insurance. Since we don't presently have such a mandate, the fact remains that all of us pay for the freeloaders who go to the emergency rooms.

 

[Dick Tuck]

So Obama and Romney are the same, huh?? So why not vote for the guy with some business experience rather than a community organizer?? Shouldn't matter, right??

Well except debt is out of control. I think we need to bring our debt down to a manageable level.

Romney made quite a bit of money by exporting American jobs, if you want to see his experience.

 

[Greenbeard]

Yes and he pointed to other things like tax credits. He never advocated a national federal mandate. I challenge you to show me where he did that. You can't just make shiz up to suit your political whims.

In this very thread someone quoted him suggesting that as President he wanted to tie the receipt of federal monies by states to the state implementing a state-level mandate or equivalent. Are we at least all fine with that?

Anyway, Romney has in the past praised Wyden-Bennett in the same breath as saying "we can do it for the nation" (i.e. getting everyone covered, as in the Massachusetts model). That isn't quite an exact statement that he supports a federal mandate but it's certainly suggestive (since he was obviously speaking in opposition to the conservative-reviled and now-defunct public option concept, it's entirely possible he simply wasn't aware in early 2009 that he was supposed to be opposed to mandates at the federal level).

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M9gGwW2gCs]Mitt Romney supported Federal Mandate in 2009 MTP appearance - YouTube[/ame]

Is it really going to take a Romney election to re-legitimize these concepts in conservative circles?

 

[Oddsfish]

THIS JUST IN: Mitt Romney is a liberal flip-flop.

 

[auditor0007]

BREAKING: Mitt Romney Urged Obama to Embrace the Individual Mandate
Red State ^ | March 2, 2012 | Erick Erickson

BREAKING: Mitt Romney Urged Obama to Embrace the Individual Mandate | RedState
Had Michigan not been as close, the Democrats would have waited to spring this on us in the general election. Luckily we have it now and I hope Ohio voters are paying attention.

In July 2009, Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed in USA Today urging Barack Obama to usean individual mandate at the national level to control healthcare costs.

On the campaign trail now, Mitt Romney says the individual mandate is appropriate for Massachusetts, but not the nation. Repeatedly in debates, Romney has said he opposes a national individual mandate.

But back in 2009, as Barack Obama was formulating his healthcare vision for the country, Mitt Romney encouraged him publicly to use an individual mandate. In his op-ed, Governor Romney suggested that the federal government learn from Massachusetts how to make healthcare available for all.


(Excerpt) Read more at redstate.com ...



The op-ed no longer appears on the USA Today website but is archived on the Mitt Romney fan site "Mitt Romney Central" and is accessible on the former Governor's old website via the web archive.


Health care cannot be handled the same way as the stimulus and cap-and-trade bills. With those, the president stuck to the old style of lawmaking: He threw in every special favor imaginable, ground it up and crammed it through a partisan Democratic Congress. Health care is simply too important to the economy, to employment and to America's families to be larded up and rushed through on an artificial deadline. There's a better way. And the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it.

Romney continues further down in the op-ed bringing up the individual mandate dreaded by conservatives.


Our experience also demonstrates that getting every citizen insured doesn't have to break the bank. First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages "free riders" to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others. This doesn't cost the government a single dollar. Second, we helped pay for our new program by ending an old one — something government should do more often. The federal government sends an estimated $42 billion to hospitals that care for the poor: Use those funds instead to help the poor buy private insurance, as we did.


Mitt Romney's Advice For ObamaCare: Look At RomneyCare

This really isn't breaking news. We knew this all along; it's just that the Republicans have been trying to hide it all this time. In the 90's, the Republicans had a very similar plan that included a mandate as a rebuttal to Hillarycare. But hey, we know the Republicans of the 90's are not the Republicans of today. Today's Republicans have shifted so far to the right that they are about to fall off the side of the Earth.