Romney Backed Individual Mandate in 2006!

1. 77

   Mighty Momposted 11 years ago

   How many "I was for it before I was against it" flip-flops is one presidential candidate allowed, anyway?
   This is a big one, as the individual mandate is the #1 bugaboo in Obama's Affordable Care Act.
   What does it tell us when the Wall Street Journal, that ultra-liberal rag, is the one doing the disclosing on Governor Romney's MA healthcare bill and how the GOP, not the Dems, were ones pushing the individual mandate in Romneycare?
   Hmmm.
   
   Here's the article link.
   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 … 54714.html
   
   Best lines:
   
   When Mitt Romney left office as Massachusetts governor, his aides removed all emails from a server computer in the governor's office, and purchased and carted off hard drives from 17 state-owned personal computers, according to a current state official.
   
   ...emails show the Republican governor was closely engaged in negotiating details of the bill, working with top Democratic state leaders and drafting early copies of opinion articles backing it.
   
   Mr. Romney and his aides, meanwhile, strongly defended the so-called individual mandate, a requirement that everyone in Massachusetts have or buy heath insurance. And they privately discussed ideas that might be anathema to today's GOP—including publicly shaming companies that didn't provide enough health insurance to employees.
   
   
   Mr. Romney once trumpeted the overhaul as his signature achievement as governor, but he has since played it down amid GOP attacks on the 2010 federal health-care bill signed by President Barack Obama, which bears similarities to the Massachusetts plan. Both contain individual mandates that require residents to buy health insurance.
   
   In Massachusetts, Mr. Romney didn't include an individual mandate in his original proposal, but soon adopted the idea. The emails show his aides later came to champion it, even amid uncertainty from some Democrats. At the time, the mandate was a favored policy of the right, with the left instead pushing for government-run insurance programs.
   
   "We must have an individual mandate for any plan to work," Tim Murphy, Mr. Romney's health secretary, wrote the governor and several aides on Feb. 16, 2006, in an email analyzing the latest confidential Democratic proposal, which he wrote was "unclear" about that requirement.
   
   
   Using an argument deployed today by the Obama administration, Mr. Romney defended the mandate by noting that taxpayers generally foot the bill when the uninsured seek health care.
   
   "Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on government is not libertarian," the published op-ed stated. In a line that didn't make the edited version, Mr. Romney added: "An uninsured libertarian might counter that he could refuse the free care, but under law, that is impossible—and inhumane."

   replyreport
   1. 61

      carol3sanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Sooo, let me get this straight.   They were all for the mandate in Mr. Romney's  insurance bill before the dems decided to use it in Obama care.... I'm shocked!!

      replyreport
      1. 59

         American Viewposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         In Massechusetts only, not national.
         
         Even Gingrich was for it back then and then realized after its implementation that it did not work and changed his mind. Nothing wrong with that. I know people make a big deal over what they call flip-flopping, and this is on both sides of the aisle. But sometimes people have an idea put it in place, it doesn't work, they have to amend it or do something completely different. That's how it should be handled.
         
         But politicians today are so afraid of being called on the carpet for changing their mind that they'll just do the same failed policy over and over again, sort of like what's happening today

         replyreport
         1. 81

            Don Wposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            "In Massechusetts only, not national."
            
            Mitt Romney has advocated a mandate approach as a national model. He was called on it by Bret Baier on Fox News (of all places). He denied it, but in another interview the Governor did say:
            
            "As we did it in Massachusetts...we can do it for the nation."
            
            "...those who followed the path that we persued will find it's the best path, and we'll end up with a nation that's taken a mandate approach."
            (Meet the Press - June 2009)
            
            The Fox and MTP interviews were in fact used in a political ad to demonstrate Romney's flipflopishness. That ad was run by none other than fellow Republican Jon Huntsman.
            
            you can see the ad (and excerpts from both interviews) here

            replyreport
2. 76

   lovemychrisposted 11 years ago

   Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

   replyreport
3. 79

   Man from Modestoposted 11 years ago

   Basically, all politicians who are in the major parties are either complicit liars or too deceived to see what they are party to.

   replyreport