Mitt Romney, the presidential candidate who is trying to remake himself by refusing to be seen in a tie, is calling for a repeal of the health-care law that President Obama signed last year. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney signed into law a similar set of reforms.
Both pieces of legislation mandate that individuals buy health insurance. Romney is trying to differentiate the Massachusetts plan by calling it a "state solution." Of course, back in 1994, Romney supported the idea of a federal individual mandate when it was the alternative to the overhaul of the health-care system that Bill and Hillary Clinton proposed.
Romney endorsed the Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993, which is very similar to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Both pieces of legislation require that individuals buy health insurance if they don't receive it through their employer.
The individual mandate was a largely Republican idea back in the day when original episodes of Seinfeld were being made. Co-sponsors of Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act included Kit Bond and John Danforth of Missouri and Robert Dole and Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas -- Republicans all.
Bond was still bumping around the U.S. Senate by the time the Democrats latched on to the idea of the individual mandate, at which point Bond wanted no part of it. In his last year in office, Bond introduced legislation to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, calling it "a government takeover of health care."
Bond called the Obama administration "totally partisan" in one of his final interviews as a U.S. senator. But what is more partisan than abandoning a political solution just because the other guy has come around to the idea?
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I understand that insurance and taxes are different. It's the whole idea of paying for other people's needs. I agree that there are those that take advantage of the system. There are also those greedy, evil people that work for private insurance AND government that use the system to take advantage of people. I don't know what the answer is. I would say more regulation, but that's government, so that would be terrible right?
"Private insurance does a much more efficient job of moving the money around, and this leads to lower costs" I wholly disagree with this. If that were the case we wouldn't have a problem now would we?
Insurance and taxes are two very different things. My point being, do you want insurance companies deciding where the money goes, or the government? Private insurance does a much more efficient job of moving the money around, and this leads to lower costs. When the government does it, it adds a lot of inefficiency to the process, and ADDS the full weight of the law behind it. Meaning you have NO CHOICE or you go to jail, or get fined.
With insurance, you're also paying for healthy people. I don't want my dollars to go to Johnny Cum Lately when he slips and falls on a wet floor!!! It's not MY fault that he doesn't have the right balance!!! I practice my balancing skills everyday! I'm the most perfect human ever!
Our tax/insurance dollars go to other people. Get used to it. If YOU don't like it, YOU get out! It's been this way for a while now. Ever hear of Article 1, Sec. 8???
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."
Why do you hate America???
White-collar conservatives flashing down the street
Pointing their plastic finger at me.
They're hoping soon my kind will drop and die,
But I'm gonna wave my freak flag high . . . HIGH!
Steve's reply to Friedman: So, Friedman likes paying for the drunks, the smokers, the chronically unhealthy people of this world through government operation with a single payer system. If you knew anything about how government ACTUALLY works, you would know that it is EXTREMELY inefficient when compared to a private insurance marketplace. Such inefficiency can only ADD costs to the system. Wake up!! When government does ANYTHING, it does NOT do it efficiently. ... And Yes, I do know what I am talking about.
You pay for other people's bad eating habits right now. What the hell do you think insurance premiums are based on?!?!? Ding! Ding! Ding! It's other people's bad habits. The difference is do we want a private company setting the prices for other people's bad habits or do we want the government doing it? Your wallet still stays in your back pocket, the check just gets made out to a different entity.
I don't think you or anyone else on here is a spokesperson for the "liberal northeast" so I am not going to put words in their mouths.
What I do know about Vermont is they have a very strong 3rd party there that has a very progressive agenda which drives the needle left. In Vermont, they elected people who ran on a platform to have their own single payer system. The legislature passed the bill and made it law. All that means is the government is going to administer it. It has nothing to do with people's health or eating habits. The people of Vermont and Texas are free to have whatever healthcare system they choose, so long as it meets the minimum standards set forth in the Affordable Care Act. In this case, Vermont chose a single-payer system and I hope that it becomes a model for the rest of the country.
I am neither fat nor lazy. I am gainfully employed and have enough sense not to go spouting off about something I know nothing about, unlike you.
Rebuttal to "Steve this is your Mother" from Steve: So, you are saying, I should embrace paying for other people's bad habits. I should say "I love you, even though you are causing needless dollars to be sucked out of my wallet." Secondly, if government pays for health care, all R&D dollars get reduced because government sees it as "wasted" taxpayer dollars. ... To "Steve's Mother" ... Go live in Vermont. Better yet, go to Canada and buy your generic copies of drugs developed in the US. ... I'll keep my wallet in my back pocket.
Texas is much fatter than Vermont. Maybe it works in Vermont because people are healthier. Texas ranks 14th in the US in Obesity and Vermont ranks 46th. I think it would work great in Texas if you were more open minded. Just because Fox tells you something doesn't mean it's right.
It's not about "viability" as you put it. It's about value structure. The liberal northeast believes that government should pay everything, and provide everything, and they have no objection to paying for fat lazy people who have massive health problems of their own doing. Texas just believes that you shouldn't smoke, you need to work to eat, and that paying to keep yourself alive is better than paying to keep fat lazy people alive. I don't know.. Maybe you are fat and lazy? Just a guess.
Well surely if your statement about the viability of a single payer system in Vermont but not in Texas is true, then you have some sort of evidence to support that assertion. We'll wait...
Maybe the Republicans have heard the cry of the American people and constitutional scholars and realized that the proposed solution of the individual mandate goes against the truest American ideal of limited and enumerable powers of the federal government. No. It's that the Democrats haven't evolved into a constitutional view of it. And.. Romney is right. What works in Vermont (i.e. the liberal Northeast) is not going to work in Texas.
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