Republicans Spurn Health Mandate... But it was originally there Idea?

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. 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.

This responsible national health insurance. 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.

I Guess “Personal Responsibility” is no longer a Republican/Conservative/Tea Baggie Value?

Apparently personal responsibility no longer applies to forcing taxpayers and people who have insurance pay for your uninsured broken leg when you end up in the emergency room.

Any illusion that the fight against the healthcare reform law was anything other than pure political posturing for 2012 was eliminated this week. The right-wing echo chamber has exhausted itself chest-thumping about the Virginia judge's ruling against the individual insurance mandate portion of the healthcare reform legislation.

Hay Republicans/Conservatives/Tea Baggies You know, that “Dastardly Individual Mandate” that was a Republican idea. The individual mandate that was backed by Republicans from Richard Nixon to Mitt Romney as a free-market solution to controlling healthcare costs--until it was incorporated into healthcare reform by President Obama.

Or as the AP put it back in May,

Examples list of conservatives that supported an individual mandate before Obama care

*In 2008, (1 years before Obama took office) a blue ribbon panel of Colorado healthcare stakeholders released policy recommendations after 18 months of hearings and discussions on the healthcare needs of Coloradans. The people at the table included everyone from the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute to the Colorado Hospital Association to the Colorado Association for Commerce and Industry. The 208 Commission, as it was called, was chartered by Republican Gov. Bill Owens and put in motion by Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter.

The 2008 (1 years before Obama took office) Commission's number one recommendation to control rising healthcare costs? Requiring all Coloradans to have insurance.

*The Ultra Conservative Heritage Foundation was promoting the Individual mandate:

The Ultra Conservative Heritage Foundation did put forward the idea of an individual mandate, though it predated Hillary Care by several years, it was in 1988-90.(21 years before Obama)

*The plan was introduced in a 1989 book,(20 years before Obama) “A National Health System for America” by Stuart Butler and Edmund Haislmaier. (both men are Conservatives)

*Newt Gingrich Supported Individual Mandate

*President Nixon In the early 1970s (39 years before Obama) favored a Individual Mandate

Nov. 20, 1993 (16 years before Obama)

( Consumer Choice Health Security Act (SB 1743)

Sponsored by Senator Don Nickles (REPUBLICAN-OK) & 24 REPUBLICAN cosponsors "Subtitle C: Employer Provisions - Requires employers to: (1) withhold health insurance premiums from employee wages and remit such premiums to the employee's chosen insurer; and (2) notify employees of their right to claim an advance refundable tax credit for such premiums."

Nov. 23, 1993 (16 years before Obama)

Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act (SB 1770)

Sponsored by Senator John H. Chafee (REPUBLICAN-RI) & 20 cosponsors (2-Democrat’s, 18-REPUBLICAN) "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."

Heritage Foundation Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans , by Stuart M. Butler * "Neither the federal government nor any state requires all households to protect themselves from the potentially catastrophic costs of a serious accident or illness. Under the Heritage plan, there would be such a requirement...

Society does feel a moral obligation to insure that its citizens do not suffer from the unavailability of health care. But on the other hand, each household has the obligation, to the extent it is able, to avoid placing demands on society by protecting itself...

A mandate on households certainly would force those with adequate means to obtain insurance protection."

Spring 1991 (18 years before Obama)

Health Affairs A Plan For Responsible National Health Insurance (201 KB) , by Mark V. Pauly, Patricia Damon, Paul Feldstein and John Hoff "(3) All citizens should be required to obtain a basic level of health insurance. Not having health insurance imposes a risk of delaying medical care; it also may impose costs on others, because we as a society provide care to the uninsured. The risk of shifting costs to others has led many states to mandate that all drivers have liability insurance. The same logic applies to health insurance...

The obligation to obtain basic health insurance should be placed on the individual, not on the employer...

In our scheme, every person would be required to obtain basic coverage, through either an individual or a family insurance plan."

Mar. 5, 1992 (17 years before Obama)

Heritage Foundation The Heritage Consumer Choice Health Plan (10 MB) , by Stuart M. Butler "Step #2: Require all households to purchase at least a basic package of insurance, unless they are covered by Medicaid, Medicare, or other government health programs.

All Heads of households would be required by law to obtain at least a basic health plan specified by Congress...

The private insurance market would be reformed to make a standard basic package available to all at an acceptable price...

Employers would be required to make a payroll deduction each pay period, at the direction of the employee, and send the amount to the plan of the employee's choice."

Jan. 1994 (15 years before Obama)

Health Affairs Personal Freedom, Responsibility, and Mandates (109 KB) , by Robert E. Moffitt "Absent a specific mandate for at least catastrophic health insurance coverage, some persons, even with the availability of tax credits to offset their costs, will deliberately take advantage of their fellow citizens by not protecting themselves or their families, with the full knowledge that if they do incur a catastrophic illness that financially devastates them, we will, after all is said and done, take care of them and pay all of the bills. They will be correct in this assessment...

An individual mandate for insurance, then, is not simply to assure other people protection from the ravages of a serious illness, however socially desirable that may be; it is also to protect ourselves. Such self protection is justified within the context of individual freedom; the precedent for this view can be traced to none other than John Stuart Mill."

June 13, 1994 (15 years before Obama)

Cato Institute Cato Institute Policy Analysis No. 210: Nickles-Sterns Is Not the Market Choice for Health Care Reform (98 KB) , by Tom Miller "The Consumer Choice Health Security Act, of which Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) and Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) are primary sponsors, is one of the leading proposals for health care reform. Unfortunately, it sets contradictory objectives: universal coverage and increased consumer choice, individual responsibility, and competition in health insurance markets...

The most troubling aspect of the Nickles-Stearns legislation, as introduced on November 20, is the mandate that it imposes on all Americans to purchase a standard package of health insurance benefits. By endorsing the concept of compulsory universal insurance coverage, Nickles-Stearns undermines the traditional principles of personal liberty and individual responsibility that provide essential bulwarks against all intrusive governmental control of health care."

– The percentage of residents without insurance coverage is down dramatically, to less than 2 percent; for children, the figure is a tiny fraction of 1 percent, a state survey shows. These are by far the lowest rates in the nation.

– Many more businesses are offering insurance to employees than were before the law. The fear going in was that the opposite would happen.

– The cost of the changes, while large, has proved manageable thus far, though there are some serious warning signs on the horizon, especially as federal stimulus funds, which have helped defray the cost, run out.

– The plan remains exceptionally popular among state residents indeed its popularity has only grown with time. There are some unhappy sectors notably small business owners, who had hoped to see moderating premiums and chafe, in some cases, at the heavy-handed enforcement of the rules by the state. And support for the requirement that individuals obtain insurance is down to a slender majority, a recent poll shows. But there is no significant constituency here for repeal.

All of this complicates Romney’s efforts to backtrack from the law, but it also presents an even larger challenge to Republicans who seek to condemn Romneycare and tout their own “free market” health care accomplishments. The fact of the matter is that when you get past all of the attacks, no other state has been able to dramatically reduce the number of uninsured and increase the percentage of residents in private health insurance.

The free market is what we have always had in healthcare and it does not work! Why do Republicans/Conservatives/Tea Baggies think it will correct it self or there non-plan and turning medicare into a voucher system will not change anything except to force the elderly to chose between healthcare and food.

I wonder Michele Bachmann‘s Gay husband would take Chickens for payment at his Pray-a-way the Gay clinic instead of the millions of dollars he has billed the Government for his scam.(I will buy the chicken, but we know they would never do as they say- she is Crazy and her husband is GAY) The gayest man in the Republican party teaching people not to be gay? Ya a Chicken might be over charging.

Republicans/Conservatives/Tea Baggies cant or wont read (they are the anti eduction party) OR

Republicans/Conservatives/Tea Baggies are no longer for personal responsibility. OR

Republicans/Conservatives/Tea Baggies are bigots that hate anything a black president is for even if there party was for it first. OR

Republicans/Conservatives/Tea Baggies are for letting the insured and tax payers pay for people who think they will never get sick or have an accident pay for there heath care when they need it. OR

Republicans/Conservatives/Tea Baggies think health care can be traded for chickens.

Republicans/Conservatives/Tea Baggies have spread there lies now hear are some actual FACTS. Most have done no study of the new healthcare bill that has been on line since before it was passed. Rush Limburger is not a source of truth just hatred of woman, hatred of minority’s, hatred of anyone who does not buy into his venomous lies.

To Read for your self on line (link below) instead of being feed untruth the H.R.3200 - America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009. But you wont read is just to much when you can just get spoon feed the lies your already believe. Conservative media should be renamed reaffirmation for the closed mind. I guarantee you Rush “pass the Oxycontin” Limburger and Glen “I am crazy as bat sh*t” Beck have NEVER read a word of the Bill.

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/show

1. The plan is not a government takeover of health care like in Canada or Britain. The government will not take over hospitals or other privately run health care businesses. Doctors will not become government employees, like in Britain. And the U.S. government intends to help people buy insurance from private insurance companies, not pay all the bills like the single-payer system in Canada. The key parts of the current U.S. system -- employer-provided insurance, Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for the poor -- would stay in place. The government would create health insurance exchanges for people who have to buy insurance on their own, so they could more easily compare plans and prices. Fact

2. Insurance companies will be regulated more heavily. They will be told the minimum services they must cover, including preventive care. They will have to pay out a certain percentage of premiums for patient care. By 2014, when the exchanges open, insurers won't be able to deny customers for pre-existing conditions. Fact

3. Everyone will have to have health insurance or pay a fine, a requirement known as the individual mandate. The government intends to cap premiums for people who make below a certain income. For people who buy insurance on the exchanges, a family of four making $88,000 would have a cap of 9.5 percent of their income. Lower incomes would have lower caps. The fine for not having insurance would be a minimum of $695 per person per year, with exemptions for financial hardship and other special cases. Fact

4. Employers will not be required to buy insurance for their employees, but large employers may be subject to fines if they don't provide insurance. But Congress wanted to encourage employers, especially large employers, to offer insurance. So they created a fine for employers with more than 50 workers: If those employees buy insurance on the exchanges and qualify for a low-income credit from the government, then the employer would have to pay a fine. Fines are calculated based on number of employees; for large firms, the fines could be significant. Fact

5. The vast majority of people will not see significant declines in premiums. When President Obama talks about premiums going down, he usually means they won't go up as much as they would otherwise. For the four out of five people who get their insurance through their employer, the savings would land in the 0 to 3 percent range by 2016, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO. People who buy insurance on their own, but who don't qualify for government subsidies, could actually see their premiums rise by as much as 10 to 13 percent, but that's largely because they'll be getting beefed-up policies that would pay for more basic services, especially preventive care. Low-income people who qualify for new credits to buy insurance would see the biggest drops. Fact

6. The plan might or might not bend the curve on health spending. Critics say there aren't enough provisions to reduce waste or fraud, but Democrats say they're not being given enough credit for new cost-saving pilot programs that could be rapidly expanded. The most recent estimate of the plan, released Thursday by the CBO, said that it would spend $940 billion over 10 years. But new taxes, penalties and cost savings would offset that spending, according to the CBO, so that overall the plan pays for itself, dropping the deficit by slightly $138 billion over 10 years. Obama has said the plan will save more than $1 trillion in the second 10 years, but that estimate, according to the CBO, is highly speculative. Fact

7. The government-run Medicare program will keep paying medical bills for seniors, but it will begin implementing cost controls on health care providers, mostly through penalties and incentives. The legislation would reduce payments for hospital-acquired infections or preventable hospital admissions. For Medicare Advantage, the federal government intends to reduce extra payments, taking away subsidies to private insurance companies. Insurers will likely cut benefits in order to not lose profits. The bill does not address the "doctor's fix," an expected proposal that Congress usually passes to prevent doctors' Medicare payments from severe cuts. Fact

8. Medicaid, a joint federal-state program for the poor, will cover all of the poor, instead of just a few groups the way it currently does. Right now, to qualify for Medicaid, a person has to be poor and also disabled, elderly, pregnant or a child. Under the new plan, all poor adults would qualify. Fact

9. The government won't pay for elective abortions. But under the Senate plan, people will be able to buy insurance that covers abortion on the new health insurance exchanges, as long as the insurance company pays for the services with patient premiums, not taxpayer subsidies. Medicaid has an exemption for cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother. Fact

10. No one is proposing new benefits for illegal immigrants. Fact

The Republicans were in control for most of Bush Nightmare and beside the largest government giveaway to the Pharmaceutical industry (Medicare part -D) Republicans did nothing to address our Sick-Care (healthcare) system. Voucher and Healthcare Savings Accounts (pathetic Republican ideas) are not supported by anyone in the medical community



The lack of good health insurance becomes a moral issue because we now have good data to show that people without insurance have a higher risk of premature death than those with it. A recent Harvard study suggests that as many as 45,000 people in this country die prematurely every year because they lack health insurance. How can people who call themselves "pro-life" live with that? I find it absolutely unacceptable as well as embarrassing that a country as rich as ours is the only developed country in the world without universal coverage! (Obamacare is not Universal coverage)In reality Pro-lifers should change there name to Pro fetus because once there baby is born they lose all interest and support all forms of death. Most pro lifers (LAMO) are Pro-War / Pro-Death Penalty / Pro-Hand Guns and Assault Refiles (Nether Hand Guns and Assault Refiles are for Hunting witch I support Hunters rights not citizens rights to have military weapons and hand guns)




Polls show that most Americans feel we should not let people die on the streets, and that we should take care of them when they "really need it." except as we found out in the Republican clown show Conservatives-Tea Baggies think we should just let people die who have no heath insurance. Pro Life my A*S, like I said Pro – fetus that’s it!




Everyone will get sick at some time. On average a visit to an emergency room is $1696.00 how many Americans have an extra $1696.00 in there monthly budget. So Republicans who used to be for Personal Responsibility now say thous of us who have heath insurance and all tax payers should pick up the cost for people who are so selfish or so stupid that don’t buy heath insurance. So Republics don’t have an argument when it come to Personal responsibility.




The constitution was written long before modern health care so to use again Republicans argument that the Constitution is so rigid that is should never be modified to fit the present day reality’s must think we should still have slavery and woman should still not have the right to vote....well we know they don’t believe a woman should have right to birth control or any legal medical procedure there imaginary friend tells them he/she/it does not approve of. In there hart of harts they want slavery and don’t want an African American president, because if it were about Freedom and the Budget, where were they when Bush shoved the Patriot act down our throat, The NSA warrant-less surveillance and wiretaps. The suspension of Habeas corpus and spent money like a drunken sailor.




For legal illiterates-




Habeas Corpus, literally in Latin "you have the body" is a term that represents an important right granted to individuals in America. Basically, a writ of habeas corpus is a judicial mandate requiring that a prisoner be brought before the court to determine whether the government has the right to continue detaining them. The individual being held or their representative can petition the court for such a writ. Also Your right to an attorney your right to speedy trial, your right to face your accuser, you can not be held without being charged. So you see why Bush needed to get rid of that pesky thing.




In a letter to James Madison, Jefferson writes:




“On similar ground it may be proved that {No Society Can Make a Perpetual Constitution}, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs to the Living Generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects of government. The Constitution and the Laws of their predecessors Extinguished them, in their Natural Course, with those whose will gave them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every Constitution, then, and {Every Law, Naturally Expires at the end of 19 Years}. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of Force and not of Right.”




Republicans/Conservatives/Tea Baggies worship at the cult of our founding fathers until there actual words conflict with there Small Mined Narrow View of the World and our Modern Society. Our Founding Fathers were the Progressives of there day and would be applauded at today’s perversions in the name of preserving a flawed document (any document that left slavery legal and did not give woman equal rights was Flawed) as great as it was over 200 years ago. Today even a Conservative President (G W Bush) ignored it when it came to his view of Personal Freedom vs Security. And the same has to be applied to Healthcare today no one but the 1 % can afford to pay out of pocket for healthcare. The age old Conservative argument its OK to ignore the Constitution when it comes to Killing and Detaining people but when it comes to healing and healthcare they retreat to the womb of strict puritan interpretation of the Constitution.






Sources:




reason.com
procon.org
npr.org
cbo.gov
thinkprogress.org
aarp.org
opencongress.org