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Huntsman Supported Health Care Mandate

Kandahar

Kandahar

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It's true that -- unlike Obama's and Romney's plans -- the bill Huntsman signed into law in 2008 did not include a mandate requiring health insurance or many rules compelling citizens to participate in the government-facilitated health plan exchange.

But it would have looked far different if Huntsman had his way, according to interviews with leading players in Utah politics. They said the former governor actually favored a mandate, but ran into fierce opposition from the conservative state legislature.

Huntsman Was For Health Care Mandate Before He Was Against It
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Yet another Republican presidential candidate supported the mandate. I've said it before, but it's worth repeating since it often gets lost in the health care debate: The individual mandate was a long-standing Republican idea. It was the central plank of many Republican health care reform proposals over the years...right up until the moment a Democratic president wanted to include it in his health care reform.

NONE of this faux-outrage about the individual mandate has anything to do with ideology, or constitutionality, or even federalism. It has to do with conservatives not liking the fact that Barack Obama signed it into law.

Here's an incomplete list of Republicans and conservatives who have supported an individual health insurance mandate, until they felt they could score more political points by opposing it. Let's start the list off with the ones who are running for president:

Jon Huntsman
Mitt Romney
Mitch Daniels
Newt Gingrich
John McCain
The Heritage Foundation
George H.W. Bush
Bob Dole
Robert Bennett
Kit Bond
Chuck Grassley
Orrin Hatch
Dick Lugar
Alan Simpson
Dan Coats
Judd Gregg
Kay Bailey Hutchison
Jim DeMint
Lamar Alexander
Lindsay Graham
Tommy Thompson
Mike Crapo

Now I don't believe for one second that all of these people suddenly had a change of heart and saw the light at precisely the moment that Obama proposed health care reform. The brouhaha over the individual mandate is absolutely, 100% political pandering and has nothing to do with some deep-seated conservative principle.
 
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Cool, now lets get away from political proposals for medical insurance reform and go towards correcting the legislative problems that caused our price increases in the first place.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
Cool, now lets get away from political proposals for medical insurance reform and go towards correcting the legislative problems that caused our price increases in the first place.
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Get outta here with that common sense............................there is no place for that here :)
 
Cap and Trade was first implemented in the United States by Ronald Reagan.
 
Kandahar said:
Yet another Republican presidential candidate supported the mandate. I've said it before, but it's worth repeating since it often gets lost in the health care debate: The individual mandate was a long-standing Republican idea. It was the central plank of many Republican health care reform proposals over the years...right up until the moment a Democratic president wanted to include it in his health care reform.

NONE of this faux-outrage about the individual mandate has anything to do with ideology, or constitutionality, or even federalism. It has to do with conservatives not liking the fact that Barack Obama signed it into law.

Here's an incomplete list of Republicans and conservatives who have supported an individual health insurance mandate, until they felt they could score more political points by opposing it. Let's start the list off with the ones who are running for president:

Jon Huntsman
Mitt Romney
Mitch Daniels
Newt Gingrich
John McCain
The Heritage Foundation
George H.W. Bush
Bob Dole
Robert Bennett
Kit Bond
Chuck Grassley
Orrin Hatch
Dick Lugar
Alan Simpson
Dan Coats
Judd Gregg
Kay Bailey Hutchison
Jim DeMint
Lamar Alexander
Lindsay Graham
Tommy Thompson
Mike Crapo

Now I don't believe for one second that all of these people suddenly had a change of heart and saw the light at precisely the moment that Obama proposed health care reform. The brouhaha over the individual mandate is absolutely, 100% political pandering and has nothing to do with some deep-seated conservative principle.
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And when did they cahnge their Minds? I ubderstand it was after the learned what it was going to cost us as individuals and what it would do to the economy.

Remember Pelosi said we can find out what's in it adter they shove it down out throats.

When people found out, that was when we went ballistic, and eveyone found out what was in this BS reform plan.
 
The reality is that many conservatives have, in the past, supported a mandate. In doing so, they were grappling with what is a genuine economic externality: "the free rider" problem. IMO, they could make a strong case for why they had supported that position in the past, if they explain the free rider problem and its overall impact. Failing to articulate that reality makes it appear as if their earlier support was merely a matter of political expediency.

Mandates provide one means for addressing the free rider problem, and such mandates exist elsewhere e.g., with auto insurance in many states. Such mandates, are not perfect, In addition, other possibilities exist e.g., imposing a significant surcharge on those who utilize medical services when they lack coverage so as to shift incentives in favor of coverage. Of course, hat approach also would have its limitations. For example, the surcharge would almost certainly have to be scalable based on the individual's income and/or assets, as it would be politically and financially self-defeating to try to impose financial costs on those who could not afford them.

Finally, one's shifting one's position when compelling new evidence supporting the move becomes available is not necessarily a bad thing. Again, it is incumbent on those who changed their positions to articulate their reasoning.
 
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An individual mandate on a state level is different than a mandate on a federal level. States mandate auto insurance, vaccinations for public school admission, and all sort of other forms of commerce. The federal government does not.
 
First, hang all the lobbyists...
with apologies to William Shakespeare
 
tessaesque said:
An individual mandate on a state level is different than a mandate on a federal level. States mandate auto insurance, vaccinations for public school admission, and all sort of other forms of commerce. The federal government does not.
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But but but it's different. Yeah that's it. Isn't that the usual Republican response when you call them out for being hypocrites?
 
Sgt Meowenstein said:
But but but it's different. Yeah that's it. Isn't that the usual Republican response when you call them out for being hypocrites?
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Selective memory, creating plausible deniability, that's what they do....
The GOP is going to self destruct over alternative healthcare plans that will never exist.
Obama will win again while the conservatives play kick the can down the road..
 
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