Hypocrisy on the Right
This is Ezra Klein, writing in The Washington Post:
For a long time, the individual mandate was perfectly acceptable among conservatives. It was their idea, in fact. When Democrats adopted it as a way to craft a health-care bill that Republicans might accept, it became instantly noxious. Today, the conservative position on the individual mandate is that it’s unconstitutional.
I agree totally. This applies in spades to the Heritage Foundation.
Vicki, if you go back to the early 1990s, you will find the American Enterprise Institute endorsed mandates as well.
I wouldn’t find the individual mandate so offensive if it only required proof of financial responsibility like auto liability insurance. Framers of the ACA wanted insurers to accept all applicants at rates that are tightly banded. Then they mandated that everyone must have comprehensive coverage. The problem for me is that the mandate is really an attempt to enforce large cross-subsidies. Ninety percent of the population has medical claims of less than $6,500 annually. It seems to me that if you want to reduce free-ridership, a limited benefit plans would suffice.
Devon, the bigger problem is: if you have a mandate, the government has to say what you have to do to satisfy the mandate. That means telling you what insurance you have to buy. Once that happens all the spcial interests will converge on the legislature and make sure the package is far more bloated and expensive than it needs to be and that people can afford.
I agree what others have said here. The virtue of the NCPA’s approach is that it keeps the relationship between the individual and the government purely financial. If you buy insurance — any insurance — you get a tax credit. The government doesn’t tell you what has to be in your health plan.
This essentially builds on what is currently the federal tax policy (pre-ObamaCare).
The problem with conservatives is that they have never been able to agree on what to do about health care. Basically, the think tanks and other groups on the right have been all over the map.
Heritage has been the most disingenuous about this — promoting the mandate in Massachusetts and elsewhere and then claiming to be against it when sending out appeals for contributions.
Red herring city.
Mandates were part of the ClintonCare bill. Conservatives resisted them then.
Not that it matters–lots of people used to think that smoking perfectly fine. Evidence mounted and they changed their minds. Are we now supposed to discount their claims that smoking is a bad idea simply because they’ve changed their mind?
Good point, Linda. But how about a little falling on the sword and atonement before they are welcomed back into the fold.
Joe, I prefer the way Christians deal with those who know they have erred.
From a purely selfish perspective, I prefer to have people who see the light in one piece and in fighting trim. They can do more to advance the truth when they are not healing from self-inflicted wounds.
Neil,
The libs don’t have a consensus either. You get everything from a complete socialist take over to the more moderate approach that was passed as Obamacare. The democrats hold both houses of Congress. If they wanted something different in the bill, they would have done it.
Conservatives are the same way. Some want the government out of healthcare entirely (libertarians) but we’re not just going to let people die so we have to have a way to fund things.
Regardless, the conservatives have the better ideas all around, and fining and arresting people for not having insurance isn’t the answer.
This was a good start: http://townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2010/03/17/my_healthcare_plan
Is Ezra Klein’s position that because a few Republicans supported the mandate, others are hypocrites for opposing it?
I agree with Devon, that the thrust of the mandate is not to make people buy insurance, but to make them buy community-rated coverage with low deductibles and lavish benefits. But proponent downplay this; instead, they lead with the red herring argument that the mandate is to keep people from receiving free care in emergency rooms. If their ignorance weren’t so plausible, I’d call it dishonest.
An individual mandate is essentially a tax on healthy poor people in order to subsidize higher-income sickly people.
Just another voice in the chorus here: It’s not the mandate, it’s the excessive nature of *what* is mandated. If I had to buy auto insurance that was “community rated” on my 11 yr old Nissan, the premiums would be well in excess of the value of the car, while I’d be subsidizing my neighbor’s new BMW. Likewise, my knee hurts, if it were his knee, he’d probably be getting an MRI tomorrow, with tax subsidized benefits. I looked up the basic treatment on the Internet and bought a $3 bandage for it, which I can’t deduct.