AP: Obama's Health Insurance Rule--It was a GOP Idea

[flpoljunkie]

Obama's health insurance rule--It was a GOP idea


Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks with Elizabeth Brackett at the Chase Auditorium in Chicago, in this photo taken Wednesday, March 24, 2010. None of the potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates has been more aggressive than Romney in criticizing the new health care overhaul. Then again, none shares his vulnerability on the issue. The new law bears striking similarities to one the former Massachusetts governor signed in 2006, and that's creating an uncomfortable straddle for Romney as his party makes attacking "Obamacare" its primary message this midterm year. (AP Photo/Charles Cherney) (Charles Cherney - AP)

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
The Associated Press
Saturday, March 27, 2010

WASHINGTON -- Republicans were for President Barack Obama's requirement that Americans get health insurance before they were against it. The obligation in the new health care law is a Republican idea that's been around at least two decades. It was once trumpeted as an alternative to Bill and Hillary Clinton's failed health care overhaul in the 1990s. These days, Republicans call it government overreach.

Mitt Romney, weighing another run for the GOP presidential nomination, signed such a requirement into law at the state level as Massachusetts governor in 2006. At the time, Romney defended it as "a personal responsibility principle" and Massachusetts' newest GOP senator, Scott Brown, backed it. Romney now says Obama's plan is a federal takeover that bears little resemblance to what he did as governor and should be repealed.

Republicans say Obama and the Democrats co-opted their original concept, minus a mechanism they proposed for controlling costs. More than a dozen GOP attorneys general are determined to challenge the requirement in federal court as unconstitutional.

Starting in 2014, the new law will require nearly all Americans to have health insurance through an employer, a government program or by buying it directly. That year, new insurance markets will open for business, health plans will be required to accept all applicants and tax credits will start flowing to millions of people, helping them pay the premiums. Those who continue to go without coverage will have to pay a penalty to the IRS, except in cases of financial hardship. Fines vary by income and family size. For example, a single person making $45,000 would pay an extra $1,125 in taxes when the penalty is fully phased in, in 2016.

Conservatives today say that's unacceptable. Not long ago, many of them saw a national mandate as a free-market route to guarantee coverage for all Americans - the answer to liberal ambitions for a government-run entitlement like Medicare. Most experts agree some kind of requirement is needed in a reformed system because health insurance doesn't work if people can put off joining the risk pool until they get sick.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/27/AR2010032700061.html

[Oregone]

1. Old news. The entire reform was an old rejected Republican idea

[flpoljunkie]

2. We may be aware of that, but we are part of the well informed electorate.

[TomCADem]

3. It Is A Way For The Corporate Media To Hedge And Give Credit To The GOP...

Despite the fact that not a single Republican voted for the plan, and the Republicans universally denied that the plan contained any Republican ideas.

[flpoljunkie]

4. I see it differently. It shows their hypocrisy in opposing Obama's healthcare plan or 'Obamacare'--

as they like to call it. It was quite amusing to see Orrin Hatch pretend he did not know he was supporting a mandate in the Republicans' alternative plan to 'Hillarycare' in the early 90's.

[TomCADem]

5. Its Like The Stimulus - GOP Will Campaign Against It, Then Claim Credit Later

How long before we start seeing commercials with Republicans claiming credit for outlawing the denial of insurance to children with pre-existing conditions?

[cornermouse]

6. More like gullibility on the democratic side.

[ProSense]

8. They should point out the hypocrisy instead of crediting Romney and the GOP with the idea. n/t

[ProSense]

7. Exactly:

Pretending that Romney and the Republicans invented the individual mandate, which was in the Clinton health bill, and is part of every universal health care plan.

[optimator]

9. a FOR-PROFIT risk pool will always be a republican idea

a progressive plan is a SHARED risk pool, which is the basis of EQUALITY

education and health are required for equal starting opportunity, and should not be just another damn marketplace.