How Can Republicans Hate the Individual Mandate?
The individual health care mandate is a conservative concept that conservatives now say they despise. What gives?
By Eliot Spitzer
Slate.com
Posted Monday, Jan. 10, 2011
When Congress returns to work after pausing to reflect on the horror of the Arizona shootings, health care repeal will top the agenda for Speaker John Boehner and the Republican Party. "Obamacare" galvanized opposition to the Obama presidency within Republican and independent ranks. And few issues within health care generate such a visceral and often hysterical response as the "individual mandate"—the obligation that all people participate either by purchasing insurance or paying a tax whose proceeds would be used to defray the costs of uninsured health care and reduce premiums.
What is bizarre about the Republican opposition is that the individual mandate is an extraordinarily conservative concept—one at the core of former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney's health prescription for Massachusetts, and one designed to address the age-old Republican critique that folks without "skin in the game" are freeloaders on society.
Put to one side for the moment the question of commerce clause jurisdiction—whether the federal government has the constitutional power to implement the idea. That issue will be resolved by the Supreme Court, but is not the cause of the visceral response to the individual mandate. Conservatives claim to be outraged that any government—federal or state—could require them to participate in the health-insurance marketplace.
Yet in a series of conversations I have had with senior Republicans—both on and off my CNN show—those individuals have conceded that the idea makes sense, and is conservative to boot.
(More here.)
By Eliot Spitzer
Slate.com
Posted Monday, Jan. 10, 2011
When Congress returns to work after pausing to reflect on the horror of the Arizona shootings, health care repeal will top the agenda for Speaker John Boehner and the Republican Party. "Obamacare" galvanized opposition to the Obama presidency within Republican and independent ranks. And few issues within health care generate such a visceral and often hysterical response as the "individual mandate"—the obligation that all people participate either by purchasing insurance or paying a tax whose proceeds would be used to defray the costs of uninsured health care and reduce premiums.
What is bizarre about the Republican opposition is that the individual mandate is an extraordinarily conservative concept—one at the core of former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney's health prescription for Massachusetts, and one designed to address the age-old Republican critique that folks without "skin in the game" are freeloaders on society.
Put to one side for the moment the question of commerce clause jurisdiction—whether the federal government has the constitutional power to implement the idea. That issue will be resolved by the Supreme Court, but is not the cause of the visceral response to the individual mandate. Conservatives claim to be outraged that any government—federal or state—could require them to participate in the health-insurance marketplace.
Yet in a series of conversations I have had with senior Republicans—both on and off my CNN show—those individuals have conceded that the idea makes sense, and is conservative to boot.
(More here.)
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