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New health insurance requirement.....was a GOP idea

disneydude

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New health insurance requirement ... was GOP idea - Yahoo! News

Republicans were for President Barack Obama's requirement that Americans get health insurance before they were against it.

The obligation in the new health care law is a Republican idea that's been around at least two decades. It was once trumpeted as an alternative to Bill and Hillary Clinton's failed health care overhaul in the 1990s. These days, Republicans call it government overreach.
....Conservatives today say that's unacceptable. Not long ago, many of them saw a national mandate as a free-market route to guarantee coverage for all Americans — the answer to liberal ambitions for a government-run entitlement like Medicare. Most experts agree some kind of requirement is needed in a reformed system because health insurance doesn't work if people can put off joining the risk pool until they get sick.

Any argument that the tactics of the GOP are anything other than political posturing simply to oppose anything that Obama proposes is disengenuous.


They were for it before they were against it.
 
New health insurance requirement ... was GOP idea - Yahoo! News

Republicans were for President Barack Obama's requirement that Americans get health insurance before they were against it.

The obligation in the new health care law is a Republican idea that's been around at least two decades. It was once trumpeted as an alternative to Bill and Hillary Clinton's failed health care overhaul in the 1990s. These days, Republicans call it government overreach.
....Conservatives today say that's unacceptable. Not long ago, many of them saw a national mandate as a free-market route to guarantee coverage for all Americans — the answer to liberal ambitions for a government-run entitlement like Medicare. Most experts agree some kind of requirement is needed in a reformed system because health insurance doesn't work if people can put off joining the risk pool until they get sick.

Any argument that the tactics of the GOP are anything other than political posturing simply to oppose anything that Obama proposes is disengenuous.


They were for it before they were against it.
beat ya to it :mrgreen:

http://www.debatepolitics.com/us-pa...h-insurance-rule-gop-idea.html#post1058646131
 
So what, even if true, it's still wrong.

The topic isn't about whether you personally agree that the healthcare bill is right or wrong. Its about whether the GOP is genuine in their opposition or whether their actions demonstrate otherwise.
There are plenty of other topics to express your personal like or dislike of the healthcare bill.
 
But republicans didn't implement it, Democrats did. Nice try at putting out fires, but words < actions.....the Republican party sucks, but the Democrat party sucks harder and they own everything about this bill.
 
The topic isn't about whether you personally agree that the healthcare bill is right or wrong. Its about whether the GOP is genuine in their opposition or whether their actions demonstrate otherwise.
There are plenty of other topics to express your personal like or dislike of the healthcare bill.





Well, to be honest, which I know is tough for you, one would have to look at the big picture here. Did they support this as part of a different plan? Maybe it made sense to them then... Who knows.


This hyperpartisan "na-na" game that you all have been playing since the bills passage is so sophomoric it would be laughable if not so lame.
 
But republicans didn't implement it, Democrats did. Nice try at putting out fires, but words < actions.....the Republican party sucks, but the Democrat party sucks harder and they own everything about this bill.

i'm not tring to "put out fires". I'm more interested in discussing how people view the GOP's "opposition" to it in light of the fact that their history shows that they supported it...before they were against it.
 
i'm not tring to "put out fires". I'm more interested in discussing how people view the GOP's "opposition" to it in light of the fact that their history shows that they supported it...before they were against it.
just imagine if the repubs actually tried to work with the dems on the recent legislation :shock:
 
i'm not tring to "put out fires". I'm more interested in discussing how people view the GOP's "opposition" to it in light of the fact that their history shows that they supported it...before they were against it.
Who implemented it? The Democrats did. I know this is hard for some to understand, but the actor owns the action, the Democrats are the actors(in more ways than one.). Since you are a partisan that means you own this as well. Funny how things work huh?
 
Who implemented it? The Democrats did. I know this is hard for some to understand, but the actor owns the action, the Democrats are the actors(in more ways than one.). Since you are a partisan that means you own this as well. Funny how things work huh?

We are all partisan...that is why we are here :doh

The reality is...yes, the Democrats got the plan through. However, the mandate to purchase insurance came courtesy of the Republicans and the Bluedogs in exchange for the public option. The public option was removed and replaced by this because they refused to even come to the table if the public option was included.
Now...looking at their history and their support for this, is it any surprise?
 
Well, to be honest, which I know is tough for you, one would have to look at the big picture here. Did they support this as part of a different plan? Maybe it made sense to them then... Who knows.


This hyperpartisan "na-na" game that you all have been playing since the bills passage is so sophomoric it would be laughable if not so lame.

If it made sense to them then....why is the biggest issue they are raising the very thing that they were behind? Rather than stomping their feet and screaming about other parts of the bill?
 
i'm not tring to "put out fires". I'm more interested in discussing how people view the GOP's "opposition" to it in light of the fact that their history shows that they supported it...before they were against it.




This is dishonest. They did not support it in the context of THIS plan. Sorry. FAIL
 
If it made sense to them then....why is the biggest issue they are raising the very thing that they were behind? Rather than stomping their feet and screaming about other parts of the bill?




Please list and quote the ones who were strongly for it, and the context of the plan they supported.... who are now resoundly against it...


Memebers who voted on both plans please.
 
We are all partisan...that is why we are here :doh

The reality is...yes, the Democrats got the plan through. However, the mandate to purchase insurance came courtesy of the Republicans and the Bluedogs in exchange for the public option. The public option was removed and replaced by this because they refused to even come to the table if the public option was included.
Now...looking at their history and their support for this, is it any surprise?




So wait, it was a compromise? Is this what your hanging your "na-na gotcha" schtick on? Really? :doh
 
I dislike the individual mandate. It is not something I'd suggest as a portion of a bill, nor something I'd be happy with Republicans pushing if they were in the majority.

However, if in the minority and attempting to compromise, if that was one of the few things found in the bill I was unhappy with and there were a number of concessions to my ideological side in it as well, I could live with it.

I have yet to have a single, solitary person on this forum provide any actual evidence of the actual proposal that was given in 1993. I've seen bloggers speaking about it, typically referencing other bloggers. I've seen a 3rd party comparison chart that is exceedingly lacking in specifics and depth. However I've seen absolutely zero hard evidence of a plan to be able to look at it independently and actually compare, despite some people on this site claiming they're nearly "identical" yet never having seen it themselves.

In 1993 the Republicans were a minority group, likely suggesting a plan that would look bipartisan and compromising in nature rather than one that was the idea thing they'd want. However there has been no indication anywhere that I've seen of the penalties or enforcement that was in the 1993 plan, which alone could paint a very different picture.

As I've said before, one could say someone should like Golf if they like Football because that shows they like games with a ball in it. One could also say that would be an incredibly ignorant comment to make.

Without actual evidence and ability to look at the plan, to see the reasonings surrounding it almost 20 years ago, and the difference between now its hard to really make such a claim, unless you're one of the typically dishonest hyper partisan types, that its automatically hypocritical or partisan to say that almost 20 years ago people in a party supported a plan that had this one particular thing in it, the extent of which is completely unknown, but to be against this current plan.
 
We are all partisan...that is why we are here :doh
:stop: the :spin: I have supported Democrats in the rare instances they were right, I conceded that Medicare part D was a frivolous waste of money, and always put constitution and country first regardless of party. Partisans are the types that simply tow the party line. So please stop trying to put everyone in the partisan camp.

The reality is...yes, the Democrats got the plan through. However, the mandate to purchase insurance came courtesy of the Republicans and the Bluedogs in exchange for the public option.
So if one of my colleagues suggests a bad idea, rethinks it, and I implement it he's the one who is responsible even though I'm the one who did it? You cannot possibly think that is an adequate response.
The public option was removed and replaced by this because they refused to even come to the table if the public option was included.
No Republicans voted Yea on the bill anyway, so what's your point?
Now...looking at their history and their support for this, is it any surprise?
:roll: So the Democrats own it and you are all trying to put out fires, thanks for the concession.
 
Please list and quote the ones who were strongly for it, and the context of the plan they supported.... who are now resoundly against it.
Memebers who voted on both plans please.

Orrin Hatch
Faced with plummeting public support, the White House is engaged in a scorched-earth PR campaign to justify its failure to listen to the majority of the American people who oppose this $2.5 trillion health-care bill. They've even started attacking my opposition to the unconstitutional federal individual mandate citing legislation that was introduced as an alternative to Hillarycare back in the 1990s.

To be clear, I supported this alternative to President Clinton's massive federal takeover of the American health-care system, because my number-one priority was the defeat of yet another big-government assault on health care that the people of Utah overwhelmingly opposed. It's that simple.

In the intervening years, I went back and carefully examined, in close consultation with constitutional experts, the legal problems with many of the bills being supported at the time. This needed to be done, because of the hasty nature of the debate which was thrust upon us in 1994. It is simply a fact that Congress has never imposed this kind of mandate before. We concluded, as would any intelligent scholar of the Constitution, that this federal mandate requiring Americans to either purchase health insurance or face a punitive tax exceeds the authority the Constitution has given to Congress...

I believe our liberty still requires limits on government, and I am glad that the country is today debating constitutional as well as policy issues. We would all be better off if more "policy experts" took this rational approach.

It's regrettable that instead of examining the legality of their health-care monstrosity, the administration and its allies are simply going on a smear campaign. From one experienced legislator, let me give Washington one very important piece of advice: Don't think you are right 100 percent of the time with everything you do. Arrogance and power are a terrible mix, and one the American people will not support...
 
Zyphlin said:
I have yet to have a single, solitary person on this forum provide any actual evidence of the actual proposal that was given in 1993. I've seen bloggers speaking about it, typically referencing other bloggers. I've seen a 3rd party comparison chart that is exceedingly lacking in specifics and depth. However I've seen absolutely zero hard evidence of a plan to be able to look at it independently and actually compare, despite some people on this site claiming they're nearly "identical" yet never having seen it themselves.


I don't know if this will satisfy your requirements or not, but here is a Kaiser Health News account.

I remember the Clinton health care battle in the 90's. It has been so long ago I had forgoten some of the specifics, but was gently reminded of the similarities of some of the proposals from back then - from both sides - to the recently passed bill.

It's a good read, but the part specific to this thread is quoted below.


Summary Of A 1993 Republican Health Reform Plan

Subtitle F: Universal Coverage - Requires each citizen or lawful permanent resident to be covered under a qualified health plan or equivalent health care program by January 1, 2005. Provides an exception for any individual who is opposed for religious reasons to health plan coverage, including those who rely on healing using spiritual means through prayer alone.

Summary Of A 1993 Republican Health Reform Plan - Kaiser Health News

This is a businessweek article from 1993

Chafee also faces intraparty competition from Senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), a Presidential aspirant. Under Gramm's plan, families would be expected to cover the first $3,000 in annual medical expenses with help from tax-deductible "medical IRAs." Mandatory insurance would pay for catastrophic illness. Price-conscious shoppers would drive down costs, Gramm argues, without the "collectivism" of the Clinton and Chafee plans. "If you change the incentives," he says, "consumers will decide how to reorganize the health system--not some planners over at the White House."

BW Online | July 5, 1993 | HEALTH REFORM: HOW THE GOP COULD BLOW ITS CHANCE
 
I have yet to have a single, solitary person on this forum provide any actual evidence of the actual proposal that was given in 1993. I've seen bloggers speaking about it, typically referencing other bloggers. I've seen a 3rd party comparison chart that is exceedingly lacking in specifics and depth. However I've seen absolutely zero hard evidence of a plan to be able to look at it independently and actually compare, despite some people on this site claiming they're nearly "identical" yet never having seen it themselves.

In 1993 the Republicans were a minority group, likely suggesting a plan that would look bipartisan and compromising in nature rather than one that was the idea thing they'd want. However there has been no indication anywhere that I've seen of the penalties or enforcement that was in the 1993 plan, which alone could paint a very different picture.

As I've said before, one could say someone should like Golf if they like Football because that shows they like games with a ball in it. One could also say that would be an incredibly ignorant comment to make.

Without actual evidence and ability to look at the plan, to see the reasonings surrounding it almost 20 years ago, and the difference between now its hard to really make such a claim, unless you're one of the typically dishonest hyper partisan types, that its automatically hypocritical or partisan to say that almost 20 years ago people in a party supported a plan that had this one particular thing in it, the extent of which is completely unknown, but to be against this current plan.


I responded to you yesterday on this, but possibly you didn't see it.

http://www.debatepolitics.com/break...-someone-shot-my-office-9.html#post1058645088


The point is that there are Republican ideas and similarities (as noted in the article below) that could have been built upon. Instead they pretended like there was no part of it they agreed with. It had to be scrapped before they would even consider it. Remember, Republicans are the minority party and therefore any legislation would never be exactly what they would like to see. Those are the consequences of losing an election.

Here is the best I could do. I could not find his 1993 plan online.

Republicans Spurn Once-Favored Health Mandate | 89.3 KPCC


But Hatch's opposition is ironic, or some would say, politically motivated. The last time Congress debated a health overhaul, when Bill Clinton was president, Hatch and several other senators who now oppose the so-called individual mandate actually supported a bill that would have required it.

In fact, says Len Nichols of the New America Foundation, 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."

The 'Free-Rider Effect'

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.

Beyond the requirement that everyone have insurance, both call for purchasing pools and standardized insurance plans. Both call for a ban on insurers denying coverage or raising premiums because a person has been sick in the past. Both even call for increased federal research into the effectiveness of medical treatments — something else that used to have strong bipartisan support, but that Republicans have been backing away from recently.

'A Sad Testament'

Nichols, of the New America Foundation, says he's depressed that so many issues that used to be part of the Republican health agenda are now being rejected by Republican leaders and most of the rank and file. "I think it's a sad testament to the state of relations among the parties that they've gotten to this point," he said.

And how does economist Pauly feel about the GOP's retreat from the individual mandate they used to promote? "That's not something that makes me particularly happy," he says.​
 
I've been saying these sorts of things for the last year but nobody listens. "Look, these were all GOP ideas first!" is always met with "Nuh UH" or some really convoluted reasoning for why the GOP didn't actually support the bills they proposed.

Conservatives, for the most part, seem to be mentally rewriting history to suit their mental image of the way the world should be. "We didn't have any terrorist attacks under Bush, we've now had one under Obama." Guiliani said that on ABC, and the chucklehead interviewing him didn't even ****ing call him on it. So much for the liberal media.

Republicans are calling a mandate a government takeover of healthcare, "armageddon," it's going to destroy the country, it's unconstitutional to make people buy insurance, but they introduced the idea themselves. Wasn't it unconstitutional then, Republicans?

I start to wonder, what's the point? Why bother talking to these people at all? If conservatives are operating on a different set of historical facts and a different dictionary than the rest of us, what use is any discussion at all?
 
I've been saying these sorts of things for the last year but nobody listens. "Look, these were all GOP ideas first!" is always met with "Nuh UH" or some really convoluted reasoning for why the GOP didn't actually support the bills they proposed.

Conservatives, for the most part, seem to be mentally rewriting history to suit their mental image of the way the world should be. "We didn't have any terrorist attacks under Bush, we've now had one under Obama." Guiliani said that on ABC, and the chucklehead interviewing him didn't even ****ing call him on it. So much for the liberal media.

Republicans are calling a mandate a government takeover of healthcare, "armageddon," it's going to destroy the country, it's unconstitutional to make people buy insurance, but they introduced the idea themselves. Wasn't it unconstitutional then, Republicans?

I start to wonder, what's the point? Why bother talking to these people at all? If conservatives are operating on a different set of historical facts and a different dictionary than the rest of us, what use is any discussion at all?
Who IMPLEMENTED them? Democrats. Who suggested them is irrelevant as the acting party owns the actions.
Besides, if this was anything more than an idea from Republicans, as has been shown in this thread as a less bad alternative to a horrible public option then they would have IMPLEMENTED them when they had the majority.

In short: The Democrats own this, so people need to stop trying to pass the ball.
/Thread.
 
Who IMPLEMENTED them? Democrats. Who suggested them is irrelevant as the acting party owns the actions.
Besides, if this was anything more than an idea from Republicans, as has been shown in this thread as a less bad alternative to a horrible public option then they would have IMPLEMENTED them when they had the majority.

In short: The Democrats own this, so people need to stop trying to pass the ball.
/Thread.


So what you're saying is the Republicans introduced a bill they believed with all their hearts was grossly harmful and unconstitutional?
 
So what you're saying is the Republicans introduced a bill they believed with all their hearts was grossly harmful and unconstitutional?
Versus a worse option that was equally so. Doesn't matter in the end though, the Democrat part majority leadership voted to implement it with no Republican yea votes. So congratulations, you own it and there is nothing you can say that will change the fact that you own it.
 
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