Why Did The GOP Flip Flop On This Issue

S

Satchel

2,500+ Posts
... and Cap and Trade, for that matter? I thought y'all didn't like flip flopping:

The case made by the GOP makes so much sense:

Individual Mandate Is A Republican Idea

The individual mandate was originally a Republican idea. "It was invented by Mark Pauly to give to George Bush Sr. back in the day, as a competition to the employer mandate focus of the Democrats at the time."

Pauly, a conservative health economist at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, says it wasn't just his idea. Back in the late 1980s — when Democrats were pushing not just a requirement for employers to provide insurance, but also the possibility of a government-sponsored single-payer system — "a group of economists and health policy people, market-oriented, sat down and said, 'Let's see if we can come up with a health reform proposal that would preserve a role for markets but would also achieve universal coverage.' "

The idea of the individual mandate was about the only logical way to get there, Pauly says. That's because even with the most generous subsidies or enticements, "there would always be some Evel Knievels of health insurance, who would decline coverage even if the subsidies were very generous, and even if they could afford it, quote unquote, so if you really wanted to close the gap, that's the step you'd have to take."

One reason the individual mandate appealed to conservatives is because it called for individual responsibility to address what economists call the "free-rider effect." That's the fact that if a person is in an accident or comes down with a dread disease, that person is going to get medical care, and someone is going to pay for it.

"We called this responsible national health insurance," says Pauly. "There was a kind of an ethical and moral support for the notion that people shouldn't be allowed to free-ride on the charity of fellow citizens."

Republican, Democratic Bills Strikingly Similar

So while President Clinton was pushing for employers to cover their workers in his 1993 bill, John Chafee of Rhode Island, along with 20 other GOP senators and Rep. Bill Thomas of California, introduced legislation that instead featured an individual mandate. Four of those Republican co-sponsors — Hatch, Charles Grassley of Iowa, Robert Bennett of Utah and Christopher Bond of Missouri — remain in the Senate today.

The GOP's 1993 measure included some features Republicans still want Democrats to consider, including damage award caps for medical malpractice lawsuits.

But the summary of the Republican bill from the Clinton era and the Democratic bills that passed the House and Senate over the past few months are startlingly alike
 
Satchel -- Damn you can be mean pointing out irritating facts. Have you missed all the Republican debates?. Sure the uninsured can now avail themselves of the emergency room and charity hospitals, but there are at least a few voiciferous Republicans who want us to have the freedom to go nekkid on health insurance but pay for it by dying on the gurney outside medical treatment facilities.

Sure in Massachusetts it's pretty cool that everybody with income has to shoulder their share of the health care burden -- lord I know from sending insurance cards when my daughter was a student at Wellesley-- but in Texas we dont burden the individual nor the employers with the requirement for health insurance -- we burden charities and the emergency room to keep folks from dying without care. Which is better? I guess I'm a leftist who likes Romneycare because I think it fairer to the goverment if tougher on the individual. It's not European Cradle to Grave health care. It is more conservative and better public policy. In my mind though, the country is going to have a lot of trouble over health care policy because not everyone is going to earn enough to pay for Lexus level health care and that's pretty much the only level of care our country makes available. It may work in a place like Massachusetts with generally high incomes and education levels. It's harder in Texas where we got a lot more poor and working class folks.
 
They didn't flip flop, in the purest sense. The ******* of the GOP were doing everything they could to combat HillaryCare, so they came up with the individual mandate as a "compromise."

They now acknowledge it as a mistake, but that doesn't seem to keep the Satchels of the world from constantly bringing it up.
deadhorse.gif


You libs act like they came up with it out of the blue as something they wanted to pursue, which is a complete mischaracterization of the situation. But that's what libs do. (rather successfully, thanks to a compliant media and a base willing and eager to be spoonfed fool's gold)

Compromising with socialists just leads to more socialism, so it is an exercise in futility. Most conservatives now "get" this, but some in our ranks are very hard headed.

BTW, why did Obama "flip flop" on the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2010?
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Satch,

That's sorta like asking why did the Democrats flip-flop on Reconstruction or slavery. The GOP of 1993 is very different from the GOP today. In 1993, the GOP had no congressional agenda of its own. Its agenda was watering down the Democratic agenda. They had no power to stop the Democrats and had no expectation of ever gaining that power, so they did what they could to slow down or undermine Democratic legislation. Offering an individual mandate was a ploy to pick off a few Democratic votes and stop the employer mandate.

They also had a very different constituency that was more agreeable with a national health care system. The voters that are now Tea Party Republicans were no where near as dominant in the GOP. Many of them weren't active at all, and many of them in the South were still voting Democratic. Furthermore, there were still quite a few moderate and even liberal Republicans in the North. It's just a different party now.
 
Mr. Deez makes a great point.

I will also point out that the Healthcare issue was relatively new and learning about it was as you go type of situation. I do not believe all sides of the cube had been examined.

I will also say this, in the 1930's Social Security was a great idea. Now that it is mandatory and it has been stolen from time and time again, no not a good idea for government run programs. If you are going to take my money away for my retirement, and least let me invest it as I choose, don't let some crooked politico's use it at their whim to fight some war in Southeast Asia or to build an airport in the middle of no where or to see if a Tropical Rain Forest can be studied in Indiana. Allow me to choose how it is invested and do NOT let politico's touch it.

Medicaid had it's early merits as well, but ultimately it was and is just another socialist program.

I think the early adoption of the GOP,not conservatives, was political and trying to jump on a winning bandwagon that was given a ton of press by the liberal media at the time.
 
Perfect response Mr. Deez. Really I think a lot more moderate Republicans could have gotten on board of Obamacare if it had been introduced with a bit more professionalism.
 
I think your assessment of why the party flip flopped is accurate. Some would be amazed to know that there are few if any GOP US Representatives in the Northeast/New England corridor. The party is essentially a racially pure, southern based party.
 
So then you all agree that R's are absolutely full of **** when they now insist that an individual mandate is unconstitutional. Or are you saying that they were urging an unconstitutional fix as a "compromise"? Or they thought it was unconstitutional, and now they have seen the light
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(their vehemence and outrage are hard to believe if they have indeed changed their mind on constitutionality) By the way, Deez, this is not just a response to you, but I did direct it at you because you tend to actually address issues in a coherent way, and I really want to know if most opponents of reform REALLY buy the Constitutionality argument.
 
Just wanted to drop by and say that I was at a meeting in Wash DC in October 2007 and Newt Gingrich was one of the featured speakers at one of the break out session (got me a nifty shot of me and the Newtster)

In that session he flat out stated that the mandate portion of HillaryCare was something that needed to be considered down the road because we needed younger and healthier people in the risk pool in order to keep premium costs under control. His point being that young people see themselves as bullet proof and are not willing buyers of health insurance.

In my case, you can see the value in having some form of a mandate without seeing the value in the POS ObamaCare legislation that Pelosi and Reid wrote (and Obama signed on to like the lackey he is).
 
I realize there are a lot of problems with Obamacase -- frankly a lot more than with Romneycare in Mass. For those of you who opposed the reforms what path among the three listed below are most palatable?
1. Individual mandate that makes sure everybody is covered.
2. Staus quo: Financially stable covered with great insurance. Poor to charity hospitals or, more likely to the emergency room, for whose services they will never pay.
3. Dying on a gurney waiting for medical care they can't afford.

I hope I'm uncreative and missing out on a fourth option that makes sense.
 
Gecko is correct.

Many conservatives still support an individual mandate as way to hold down costs by having a sufficient number of healthy people in the insured pool. This enables a market based solution rather than risk a single payer (i.e. government) option.
 
Mostly agree with Deez. Some very simple, and doable, things could be accomplished almost over night.

I strongly favor a mandate that everyone has to have insurnace. if we are going to have a society that will treat people at anytime with no regard for their ability to pay (and I think we absolutely have to have that system) then it is not unreasonable to have everyone participate in the system.

The health insurers have already stated, in writing, that if there is a mandate they will agree to the following:
1) Immediate lowering of base rates by 10% (everyone would benefit from this)
2) An end to health based pricing or underwiting (the small minority that has chronic expensive care needs do not get their premiums jacked up as a result)
3) No pre-existing exclusion provisions (wouldn't really need it as everyone will be covered anyway)
4) No lifetime limits
5) No cancelling of coverage for losses

All those alone are enough of a reason to do it.

In addition, the very best way to handle this is to have everyone own personal policies as opposed to group policies. Group coverage is not actually cheaper for 85% of the people in the group. It is only cheaper for those that have medical problems. Its advantage right now is basically:
1) Guaranteed coverage (which we will have anyway with a mandate)
2) Tax advantages to employees from some companies and some companies actually pay for the benefit and deduct the amount spent. All of that can easily be included/replaced in a new system. Companies could offer $500 a month stipends and call them "health insurance allownaces" similar to "car allowances). The company could deduct the amount just as they do now.
3) Often ties employees to jobs because they need the coverage. I think it is horrible that someone would need to stay in a job they dislike just to keep their insurance.

Give them private policies like , auto, life, car etc. It is completely portable.

Like Dezz said, offer young healthy folks or young families HSAs or high deductible policies that are very, very cheap but provide catastrophic coverage as well as coverage for routine office visits and $10 copays for generic drugs. I looked online and these can be found for $50/month.

I am sure there will be some that advocate doing away with insurers completely and going to universal care. i think that is a truly horrib;le idea. I have my doubts about things like long waiting lists and availability of doctors etc, but the biggest problem would be the cost. Look at medicare and medicaid. Obama admitted that he believes there is $150B-$200B in fraud and abuse in the program. The govt just has no incentive to keep costs down and no incentive to provide good service.

Let the insurers watch costs. There won't be any coverage issues with the new policies so all the insurers will do is watch costs and audit bills and try to give good service to keep business. Everyone wins.

Lastly, the insurers have said they will not raise base rates as a result of health problems, and that is great. However, they can certainly offer discounts off of the base rates for healthy people and healthy lifestyles. I think this could really help overall health in our country. Money is a strong motivator. If a family is paying $500/month for coverage and they can get as much as $75-$100 less if they maintain certain weights and dont smoke etc, they might do it. For sure some will.

You can also make the coverage mandatory until age 70 for those that are now say 45 and under and you make medicare solvent.
 
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