First, let's get this issue straight. No where am I suggesting that the individual mandate wasn't originally suggested by certain segments of conservatism two decades ago. I acknowledged that the first major presentation of the notion came from the Heritage Foundation in the 80's as a potential alternative idea to universal health care, and was part of a Republican plan in 1993. My disagreement was over this notion that Obama thought, or should've thought, he'd get some conservative support SIMPLE because he "Got it from Conservatives".
The reason I suggested this was ridiculous is because history suggests that it was an "idea from conservatives".....that was ultimately REJECTED by the majority of the party back in 1994 and since.
Taking things from a liberal premise perspective....Obama expecting conservatives to get on board because they at one point years ago supported something would be akin to Republicans expecting democrats getting on board with requiring ID to vote since they got the idea to require additional hurdles to vote from Democrats.
This would of course be silly, because it was years ago that Democrats by and large supported Poll Tests and had in the years since rejected such notions. Well similarly, it's been years ago that Republicans by and large supported the Individual Mandate and had in the years since rejected such a notion.
Second, my issue is with this broad characterization that a
SINGULAR IDEA is meant to be enough to get someone on board with a law.
Now, your link indicates that
SOME Republicans did support the individual mandate over TWO DECADES AGO. However, let's be truthful...you're being as honest and forthright with the facts as many liberals suggest George W. Bush was in regards to WMD's in Iraq, and if Obama actually truthfully believed that would gain conservative votes then he was being as naive and ignorant as many liberals claim GWB was as well.
The 1993 Bill in Question, the one that built off the idea put forward by a single individual at heritage, quickly lost support from Republicans. The soon to be Presidential nominee, Bob Dole, who originally cosponsored the bill...along with a number of other senators...were the first to abandon the idea in part due to the individual mandate in 1994
(SOURCE). It was during that year that Senate Republicans completely abandoned the Chafee bill and instead focused on one that expand access to insurance while stopping short of requiring everyone to have insurance
(SOURCE). Within short order enough Republicans opposed the Chafee Plan to kill it in the 103rd congress completely
(SOURCE).
Shortly after Forty of the Forty-Four Republican Senators supported the Dole-Packwood health care plan that rejected the notion of an individual mandate
(SOURE). In the wake of his new bill, supported by the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate, Bob Dole explained well the thought of Conservatives regarding the notion of universal coverage via the individual mandate:
"I think I agreed that was certainly a goal. I didn't object to everybody being covered.
But I did object on how we were going to do it and how we were going to get there and how they defined it."
(SOURCE)
As you can see, as early as 1994....TWENTY YEARS AGO...it was clear that by and large conservatives had abandoned the notion that the "individual mandate" was a legitimate means of going about attempting to get people covered for health care. Liberals keep pointing back to something that occurred in 1993 as a means of expecting Conservatives to have gotten on board 15 years later...all while ignoring that ONE YEAR later they already had rejected the notion. Why in the world would Conservatives...
fourteen years after they by and large began to reject the individual mandate...jump on board with a bill simply because it had an individual mandate?
Additionally, to my second point, once again Obama and his supporters are either naive or ridiculously dishonest in their presentation.
EVEN if we're to assume Republicans still supported the individual mandate, despite them abandoning it in 1994, the differences between the 1993 bill and the ACA are still STAGGERING enough to both legitimatize opposition despite a token "conservative idea" AND to suggest that said token would be made impotent by the other factors.
From another thread where I had to deal with someone's continual spew of propaganda:
EVEN if we're to believe what is patently foolish to believe...that because Republicans agreed with the individual mandate 15+ years prior that they MUST still have believed in it in 2009/10...there are still a plethora of reasons why someone shouldn't have expected Republicans to get on board with due to one particular token bone thrown their way.
But when one realizes that said bone was rejected 15 years prior by Republicans, and that the only reason people don't realize that is because the propaganda machine is drumming along wonderfully well on the part of the liberals showing only a short segment of history and praying people don't do this crazy thing called "Research" (that funny thing you'd expect media members to do...), it looks even more foolish to think that they were going to get on board with any major way.
So no....
There is no reason why Obama should've thought he was HONESTLY putting forth a "conservative idea", nor that he should've thought he'd had gained conservative support, unless he was an utter buffoon with an inability to research any form of history beyond 1993. Wide spread conservative support for the Individual Mandate vanished 15 years before the Obama Administration put forward the ACA as a potential means of health care reform. Expecting Conservatives to have just teleported back in time to 1993, ignoring the 15 years since where the idea had been rejected and the context of the situation changed, would be pure idiocy.
