Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Tuesday, June 5, 2012

MITT ROMNEY ON THE HEALTH CARE MANDATE

The Republicans are smacking their lips over the idea of putting Mitt Romney in the White House and replacing the Liberal, Socialist, Commie, Kenyan.

And we liberals are scratching our heads over why the GOP is in thrall with the idea of replacing a moderate liberal with moderate liberal.

Recently uncovered emails from Romney's term as governor of Massachusetts show how diligently and earnestly Romney worked for the individual mandate for the universal health care legislation he crafted, the very mandate that the SCOTUS may overturn this month on the ACA.

Wall Street Journal Uncovers Romney E-Mails Supporting the Health Care Mandate



Posted by on Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 3:21 PM





"For team Romney, it was clear from the start that a mandate would be critical. Analyzing a proposal offered by the Senate leader, Romney’s health secretary Tim Murphy wrote in a Feb. 2006 email to the governor and key aides: 'It is unclear that the plan adopts an individual mandate. We must have an individual mandate for any plan to work.' "

Emails Reveal How Romney Persuaded Skeptical Dems To Adopt Health Care Mandate

"The emails, obtained by the Wall Street Journal, reveal a politically savvy governor and his team seeking to maneuver a complex bill through the Massachusetts legislature. The bill became the template for President Obama’s national health care law, which Romney promises to repeal if elected president.

For team Romney, it was clear from the start that a mandate would be critical.

Analyzing a proposal offered by the Senate leader, Romney’s health secretary Tim Murphy wrote in a Feb. 2006 email to the governor and key aides: 'It is unclear that the plan adopts an individual mandate. We must have an individual mandate for any plan to work.' ”

I've yet to read or hear an explanation of why the Republican idea of a mandate turned into an apocalyptic assault on the Constitution once a Democrat embraced the conservative idea.

"Romney signed the bill into law on April 12, 2006.

Days prior, the governor personally drafted several versions of an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal making the case for the legislation. In the drafts that his aides helped edit, Romney seemed keen on defending the mandate to skeptics on the right, invoking an argument that he has since used and that Obama often uses to defend his mandate.

'Some of my libertarian friends balk at an individual mandate,' Romney wrote in draft language that was edited. 'But is it libertarian to insist that government pick up the tab for those without insurance or means to pay? An uninsured libertarian might counter that he could refuse the free care, but under law, that is impossible — and inhumane.'

On the day he signed the bill into law, Romney wrote an email thanking top aide Tom Trimarco.

'Quite a day! You deserve a great deal of credit for making today happen,' Romney wrote. 'You have made a huge difference for me and for hundreds of thousands of people who will have healthier and happier lives. Thanks Tom. Best, Mitt.' "

But making "a huge difference...for hundreds of thousands" of Americans who need health care coverage is, to presidential candidate Romney, something he believes is wrong and promises to overturn the ACA on his first day in office.  That is what Romney has said [even though he Constitutionally cannot do so].  Somehow this guy believes making health care a reality through individual mandates is a good thing for hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents, but wrong for hundreds of thousand of other Americans.

"Romney's op-ed, published during the heat of the health care debate and...unearthed by BuzzFeed, is squarely on the side of health care reform being driven by the federal government. In fact, the national plan that Romney sketched out as acceptable to conservatives closely resembles the one that Obama ultimately signed into law.


The op-ed no longer appears on the USA Today website but is archived on the Mitt Romney fan site "Mitt Romney Central" and is accessible on the former Governor's old website via the web archive.
"Health care cannot be handled the same way as the stimulus and cap-and-trade bills. With those, the president stuck to the old style of lawmaking: He threw in every special favor imaginable, ground it up and crammed it through a partisan Democratic Congress. Health care is simply too important to the economy, to employment and to America's families to be larded up and rushed through on an artificial deadline. There's a better way. And the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it.

Romney continues further down in the op-ed bringing up the individual mandate dreaded by conservatives."


Romney, after touting the success of the Massachusetts plan in the op-ed, noted that the main problem facing health care generally is soaring inflation and that only the federal government can rein it in. 'Here is where the federal government can do something we could not: Take steps to stop or slow medical inflation,' he wrote."





16 comments:

Jerry Critter said...

I respectively suggest that conservatives look closely at what Romney did when he was in government as opposed to what he says he will do. If you really want a conservative president, then vote for the libertarian. Otherwise, you will end up with a moderate liberal, no matter who wins.

Anonymous said...

"soaring inflation" ?
Doesn't sound like a smart businessman to me.

Les Carpenter said...

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely...

The more refined statism becomes the more power rests in the state and the more corrupt it will become.

skudrunner said...

A vote for a libertarian is just like a vote for Obama.

Although Romney is a fiscal moderate and not a fiscal conservative he is a far cry from the far left ideas of Obama. Like Obama, Romney's views are evolving and I think he has changed his views on national mandatory healthcare to be with the majority of Americans who are against it.

Shaw Kenawe said...

"I think he has changed his views on national mandatory healthcare to be with the majority of Americans who are against it."

It's amazing, isn't it, how in a mere 6 years, the former governor of Massachusetts went from creating universal health care for Massachusetts residents WITH a mandate and now is doing back-flips over the mandate he included in the reform.

Now that Romney is running for president--and he has been since 2007, one year after he decided NOT to seek re-election as Gov. of Mass., his crowning achievement is "evolving?"

Evidence proves otherwise. Romney has no core beliefs except one: His belief that he will make a great president, no matter which way the winds blows.

It stretches credulity to accept that a mature man could change a core belief--mandates are good--in so short a time.

You and others talk about blinders with regard to liberals' loyalty to President Obama? Not only are conservatives wearing blinders on this major issue with Romney, but over the blinders they've placed 3 bandanas and duck tape.

And you're wrong about the "majority" of Americans against the ACA. Americans are evenly divided, just like the country is politically.



March 21, 2011

One Year Later, Americans Split on Healthcare Law

Democrats continue to be highly positive about the law; Republicans, highly negative

by Frank Newport


From Gallup: "PRINCETON, NJ -- One year after President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, Americans are divided on its passage, with 46% saying it was a good thing and 44% saying it was a bad thing. Most Americans are skeptical that the law will improve medical care in the U.S. or their own personal medical care."

Jerry Critter said...

"A vote for a libertarian is just like a vote for Obama."

I must admit. That is something I have never hear before. Hey, all you Libertarian out there. You guys must love Obama!

Shaw Kenawe said...

Jerry,

This is interesting:

"The seismic shift continues.

Key House Republicans on Tuesday left the door open to supporting pieces of “Obamacare” in a replacement package the GOP wants to be prepared with if the Supreme Court overturns the health care law later this month.

“It would be hard to write a 2,700-page bill and not have something in there that you like,” Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN), a physician and leading GOP voice on health policy, told reporters in response to a question from TPM.

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), the chairman of the influential Republican Policy Committee, offered a new rationale for potentially backing some of the more popular concepts in the law: They’ve become important to people.

“We believe that the whole bill needs to be repealed,” Price said. “That being said, there are some things that have been instituted that a lot of folks have begun to rely upon and plan — make their family plans — based upon. Twenty-six-year-olds being on their parents’ insurance is one of them.”

The remarks are the latest public manifestations of the party’s gradual pivot over the last few weeks from lock-step opposition to Obamacare to a willingness to embrace its more popular provisions."


So what will Willard say to that. He has promised that as soon as he's elected president, he will repeal the ACA [even though he really can't--but don't tell Willard.]

Shaw Kenawe said...

Forgot to link to it. HERE.

It appears the GOP's take-no-prisoners assault on Obamacare is beginning to crack.

Wouldn't it have been to this country's advantage if the conservatives had worked with Mr. Obama in creating the ACA instead of stonewalling him?

Now it looks like the GOP will have to eat their words and dine on some of the "socialist medicine" they turned their noses up on. LOL!

Such adolescent behavior on the part of grown men and women is discouraging.

skudrunner said...

"It stretches credulity to accept that a mature man could change a core belief--mandates are good--in so short a time."

Is this Obama's stance on gay marriage you are referring to.

Not quite even but I will admit it is close to even. If ACA is such a great thing why have unions and so many companies opted out. Why do the leaders who voted it in not want to participate. For those who do not have healthcare ACA it a great thing. For those 85% who have healthcare, it will lower care.

Most Americans have no clue what is in the ACA and neither do our elected officials and Obama because they have never read it. It bothers me that our bought and paid for representatives have become so partisan that they will vote for a bill they have never read just because they are told to. Whatever happened to representing the people.

Maybe with Walker winning the recall, we can get politicians that will actually do what they say they will do.

Anonymous said...

If we go by the American people, they still are a majority conservative.
This is evident by elections. The people gave Republicans a majority in the House just 2 years after Obama took office. That was coincidentally after Obama announced his health care plan. I think last nights election in WI was not due to Walker's money. If so I would have expected a larger win.
Face it, you will have to learn to live with the idea that you are in the minority, and Americans do not want the ideas Obama is talking about.
The fact that Romney has been neck and neck with Obama since he entered the primary, is also a bad sign.

Shaw Kenawe said...

"Maybe with Walker winning the recall, we can get politicians that will actually do what they say they will do."

Wrong. Walker never mentioned once while running for governor that he was going after collective bargaining.

Here's PolitiFact on the subject:


"I campaigned on (the proposals in the budget repair bill for Wisconsin) all throughout the election. Anybody who says they are shocked on this has been asleep for the past two years."

Scott Walker on Monday, February 21st, 2011 in a news conference



Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says he campaigned on his budget repair plan, including curtailing collective bargaining


In the turbulent wake of his controversial plan to sharply curtail collective bargaining rights, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has faced criticism that he gave no warning of such a dramatic plan during the long 2010 governor’s race.

Walker has forcefully challenged that contention, most bluntly at a Feb. 21, 2011 news conference.

We rate his statement False."

SOURCE: POLITIFACT

Shaw Kenawe said...

Anonymous: "The fact that Romney has been neck and neck with Obama since he entered the primary, is also a bad sign."

If the country is a "majority conservative," why isn't Romney ahead right now? You contradict yourself in your own statement.

You're also leaving out the fact that only a 30 - 35% of the voting public voted for the GOP in 2010.

That's hardly a mandate for anything.

Interesting poll out recently:

People who believe in creationism and a young earth are aligned with the GOP and also the least educated.

Those With Postgraduate Education Least Likely to Believe in Creationist Explanation

"Americans with postgraduate education are most likely of all the educational groups to say humans evolved without God's guidance, and least likely to say God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000years. The creationist viewpoint "wins" among Americans with less than a postgraduate education."

Is there a correlation between undereducated people, the GOP, and creationists?

Gallup

skudrunner said...

Shaw,

Walker was elected and affirmed to be fiscally responsible and balance the state budget, he kept his promise.

Obama was elected to reduce the deficit and have a transparent administration, which is a promise he broke.

Walker did not break the unions, he is just making union members pay for some of their retirement and healthcare, something the private sector has done for years.
The voters got complacent in the past and let the politicians buy votes from the union members with sweetheart benefits. Now the bill has come due and the voters demand accountability and the unions scream.

Do you believe it is unfair to pay for a very small portion of pensions and healthcare?

I am not sure what "People who believe in creationism and a young earth are aligned with the GOP and also the least educated.?"
What does that have to do with the discussion.

Anonymous said...

"People who believe in creationism and a young earth are aligned with the GOP and also the least educated."

That's the same religious block that helped Reagan, Bush, and Bush win. They may be uneducated, but they get the majority vote.

Dave Miller said...

Ah yes Anon... you are correct in that, as you stated, the uneducated did elect Reagan, Bush and Bush...

The founding fathers knew the perils of giving a direct vote to the masses in regards to the Presidency and even the Senate, because the masses cannot be trusted to do the intelligent thing.

Thus we had the electoral college and appointment of Senators.

Might does not always make right and I dare say I did not hear many GOP partisans invoking that mantra after Obama won a sweeping victory in 2008.

Why is that? Does your side only believe in following the mandate of the people when you win, or is it a universal value?

Tell us... please...

Anonymous said...

My side?
I think you missed the point.
I voted for Obama, and will again.