Obamacare

[lil mike]

Hmm interesting

Poll: Most Say High Court Should Reject Health Insurance Mandate

A new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that more than half of Americans say the Supreme Court should rule that the health overhaul law’s requirement to have health insurance or pay a fine is unconstitutional.

The poll by the nonpartisan foundation found that 54% of those surveyed said the Supreme Court should rule against the mandate while only 17% said the court should uphold it and 29% either didn’t know or didn’t answer.

I thought it was going to become popular when passed?

[Howey]

Hmm interesting

Poll: Most Say High Court Should Reject Health Insurance Mandate

A new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that more than half of Americans say the Supreme Court should rule that the health overhaul law’s requirement to have health insurance or pay a fine is unconstitutional.

The poll by the nonpartisan foundation found that 54% of those surveyed said the Supreme Court should rule against the mandate while only 17% said the court should uphold it and 29% either didn’t know or didn’t answer.

I thought it was going to become popular when passed?

Ahh...more misinformation.

Republican opposition to the Democrats’ 2010 health care overhaul law is intense, with 73% of Republicans having an unfavorable view of it. By contrast, 62% of Democrats view it favorably.

Let's also look at this comment:

The survey also found that most Republican voters don’t agree with the attack on GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney that the health care law he signed as governor of  Massachusetts is similar to the federal law.  Some 30% said they felt Mr. Romney’s views on health care were akin to President Barack Obama’s, but almost half said the former governor’s views are different, and 22% didn’t answer.

It's a shame you Republicans are soooo misinformed. According to PolitiFact, the Mass law is very, very much like Obamacare:

So are the national health plan and the Massachusetts plan that similar? In a word, Yes.

What's funny is that in this thread, you pass off the Kaiser study as being all about opposition to the individual mandate, which is (duh) far from the truth. The title of the survey is:

Majority Of Americans Think Ideology Will Affect High Court’s Ruling On Health Law

The public doubts the Supreme Court renders judgments based solely on the law.  Three-quarters (75%) say they think that, in general, Justices let their own ideological views influence their decisions while 17 percent say they usually decide cases based on legal analysis without regard to politics and ideology.  Similarly, when asked specifically about the challenge to the individual mandate in the health reform law, six in ten (59%) Americans say they expect the Justices will take their own ideological views into account, while 28 percent think their decision will be based purely on legal analysis and interpretation.

That is (again, duh) pretty much obvious. Thankfully, the SCOTUS has determined Kagan doesn't need to recuse herself.

[Howey]

It's a shame you Republicans are soooo misinformed. According to PolitiFact, the Mass law is very, very much like Obamacare:

Hmmm...also noted within the article:

Mr. Romney got another dose of good news Wednesday: An article in the influential policy journal Health Affairs said there are several indications that the Massachusetts health law has been a success.

Sure did! Let's hear it for that individual mandate!

[Howey]

I just thought of something. Why are Republicans today so opposed to an insurance mandate?

If I remember correctly they were the first in line supporting it. 

[lil mike]

Ahh...more misinformation.

Let's also look at this comment:

It's a shame you Republicans are soooo misinformed. According to PolitiFact, the Mass law is very, very much like Obamacare:
:
 

I agree that the Mass law is very much like Obamacare.  It's been a good indicator of what to expect.

That is (again, duh) pretty much obvious. Thankfully, the SCOTUS has determined Kagan doesn't need to recuse herself.

Why thankfully, unless you expect Kagan's vote is already assured, regardless of the case?

[Howey]

I agree that the Mass law is very much like Obamacare.  It's been a good indicator of what to expect.

Why thankfully, unless you expect Kagan's vote is already assured, regardless of the case?

I'd like you to answer my question.

I just thought of something. Why are Republicans today so opposed to an insurance mandate?

If I remember correctly they were the first in line supporting it. 

[FooFa]

I'd like you to answer my question.

How is this a d/r issue. Romney wrote Obamacare.

[FooFa]

When Mitt Romney is asked, as he often is, to explain the fact that Obamacare was modeled after Romneycare, he asks the President: “If that’s the case, why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you ask what was wrong? Why didn’t you ask if this was an experiment, what worked and what didn’t…I would have told him, ‘What you’re doing, Mr. President, is going to bankrupt us.’” Now, Michael Isikoff, the Newsweek veteran who is best known for his investigative reporting on the Monica Lewinsky flap, is out with a lengthy report divulging “fresh details” on how the Obama administration relied on the designers of Romneycare in fashioning their own health-care law.

Despite the report’s somewhat breathless tone, it’s actually old news that Mitt Romney’s health-care experts helped design Obamacare. Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist who was the architect of both laws, received nearly $400,000 as a consultant to the Obama administration for “technical assistance in evaluating options for national healthcare reform.” (Gruber frequently failed to mention this fact when opining on the bill in the press.)

Gruber, for his part, has said all along that Romneycare and Obamacare are “basically…the same thing.” Gruber told the Boston Globe in March 2010 that Obamacare would never have passed had Romney not made “the decision in 2005 to go for it. He is in many ways the intellectual father of national health reform.”

And, as Isikoff notes, while President Obama may not have called Romney, he did call Gruber. Indeed, White House visitor logs show that “senior White House officials had a dozen meetings in 2009 with three [Romney] health-care advisers and experts.” These included Gruber (five); Jon Kingsdale (three), executive director of Massachusetts’ new subsidized insurance exchange; and John McDonough (four), executive director of a Massachusetts advocacy organization called “Health Care for All.”

One of the White House meetings with Gruber was personally chaired by the President in the Oval Office. “The White House wanted to lean a lot on what we’d done in Massachusetts,” said Gruber. “They really wanted to know how we can take that same approach we used in Massachusetts and turn that into a national model.”

Gruber is an admirer of Romney. “I went into [my first meeting with Romney] and came out as a Democratic voter scared about the prospect of him as a Republican [presidential] candidate,” Gruber once told NPR. “I mean, he’s brilliant. He clearly had a grasp of the issues. He’s incredibly personable and powerful. And I just came away totally impressed.”

These days, Gruber thinks it’s “depressing” that Romney distances himself from Obamacare. “I think he is the single person most responsible for health care reform in the United States…I’m not trying to make a political position or a political statement, I honestly feel that way. If Mitt Romney had not stood up for this reform in Massachusetts…I don’t think it would have happened nationally. So I think he really is the guy with whom it all starts.”

Here’s a 7-minute video of an interview Romney did with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto on the heels of Romneycare’s passage in 2006, discussing the law’s rationale.
In that context, let me say one thing in Romney’s defense. Most conservatives roll their eyes at Romney’s argument that he would never support something like Obamacare, because it foists a “one-size-fits-all” approach on the country. I think Romney is being truthful. Romney consistently said back in 2006 that he thought Massachusetts might serve as a model for other states. “How much of our health-care plan applies to other states? A lot,” wrote Romney in a 2006 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.

That’s the part that will get play in his opponents’ ads. But, in fairness to Romney, later in the piece, he did argue that federalism and experimentation were the best way forward. “One great thing about federalism is that states can innovate, demonstrate and incorporate ideas from one another,” he wrote. “Other states will learn from our experience and improve on what we’ve done. That’s the way we’ll make health care work for everyone.”

Romney has changed his mind on quite a few things since his days as governor. And many of his arguments distinguishing Romneycare from Obamacare are nonsensical. But it’s accurate to say that he has consistently supported state-based health-care reform over a one-size-fits-all approach. On that narrow point, perhaps, conservatives should cut him a break.

UPDATE: Jonathan Cohn reminds me that John McDonough’s book, Inside National Health Reform, details the ties between Romneycare and Obamacare. McDonough served Ted Kennedy at the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee in 2008:

As it happens, McDonough has just published a book on that experience called Inside National Health Reform. In it, he describes just how consciously, and closely, reformers in Washington followed the example Massachusetts had set.

Among the stories he recounts is an October 2008 meeting in the Dirksen Senate Office building. In a presentation to key “stakeholders” — consumer advocates, lobbyists for the health care industry, and so on — HELP staff outlined three possible approaches to reform. There was “Constitution Avenue,” meaning a wholesale change to single-payer or some other new system, along with “Independence Avenue,” meaning an incremental, go-slow approach to reform. And then there was “Massachusetts Avenue,”

“Meaning reform based on the key elements of the near-universal coverage law enacted in Massachusetts in 2006. Those elements include deep and systematic health insurance market reform, a mandate on individuals to purchase insurance, subsidies to make insurance affordable, and an insurance “exchange” to connect people with coverage.”

The group’s overwhelming favorite was Massachusetts Avenue, which, McDonough notes, was hardly surprising:

“By October 2008, this approach had become the accepted direction among nearly all major Democratic officeholders who wanted health reform to be a top priority in 2009, including the three major Democratic presidential candidates. … Before the election, before the congressional process was actively engaged, a 2006 Massachusetts law had already become the essential template for national reform.”If you want to read more about the many connections between Romneycare and Obamacare, by the way, I highly recommend Brian Mooney’s series in the Boston Globe and Ryan Lizza‘s essay in the New Yorker — along with McDonough’s book.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/10/11/how-mitt-romneys-health-care-experts-helped-design-obamacare/

link has video of Romney talking about it in '06

[Howey]

How is this a d/r issue. Romney wrote Obamacare.

Oh shit! You're jumping in without reading!

I just thought of something. Why are Republicans today so opposed to an insurance mandate?

If I remember correctly they were the first in line supporting it. 

[FooFa]

I saw that and was adding my additional thoughts, source and expert insight  .

Angry little man!

[Howey]

Angry little man!

My name's not lilMike.

[ekg]

How is this a d/r issue. Romney wrote Obamacare.

because Obama championed it..  Had it been Bush, not a single (R) would have said a peep... The individual mandate was around before Hillarycare, it was what the GOP was going to 'counter' her idea with..  The GOP loved the idea right up until Obama used it, then it became evil.. and a r/d issue..

Think about it, you are forced to buy health insurance from a private company..  sure, that's a 'dem' idea..

and to show you how the GOP totally fucked up the message... brilliantly btw, this mandate is considered the height of Obama's socialistic policies.. it not only is proof he's a Marxist, but it also proves he's 'European'... even tho European's get their healthcare for free..

I mean, it's freaking amazing how the GOP was able to turn a plan that makes you buy from the private sector into socialism..

[lil mike]

because Obama championed it..  Had it been Bush, not a single (R) would have said a peep... The individual mandate was around before Hillarycare, it was what the GOP was going to 'counter' her idea with..  The GOP loved the idea right up until Obama used it, then it became evil.. and a r/d issue..

Think about it, you are forced to buy health insurance from a private company..  sure, that's a 'dem' idea..

and to show you how the GOP totally fucked up the message... brilliantly btw, this mandate is considered the height of Obama's socialistic policies.. it not only is proof he's a Marxist, but it also proves he's 'European'... even tho European's get their healthcare for free..

You don't know the history of the 2008 election very well.  Hillary was for the individual mandate and Obama opposed it.  Obama only signed on after Congress wrote the bill for him.  Are you getting more ill informed as time goes on?  You were on top of these issues in 2008.

I mean, it's freaking amazing how the GOP was able to turn a plan that makes you buy from the private sector into socialism..

You don't see anything wrong with the above sentence do you?

[lil mike]

I just thought of something. Why are Republicans today so opposed to an insurance mandate?

If I remember correctly they were the first in line supporting it. 

I can't speak for other Republicans but I regard it as unconstitutional and have never supported it.

[ekg]

You don't know the history of the 2008 election very well.  Hillary was for the individual mandate and Obama opposed it.  Obama only signed on after Congress wrote the bill for him.  Are you getting more ill informed as time goes on?  You were on top of these issues in 2008.

wow.. you really think you got me there don't you.. 

because Obama championed it..  Had it been Bush, not a single (R) would have said a peep... The individual mandate was around before Hillarycare, it was what the GOP was going to 'counter' her idea with..  The GOP loved the idea right up until Obama used it, then it became evil.. and a r/d issue..

nothing in that says anything about what Obama or HRC supported in 2008, in fact nothing in that has anything to do with the 2008 campaign,..... why are you trying to change the subject by bringing in details that immaterial to this conversation.. so she liked it and he didn't... oooohhh campaign promise breaker.*rollseyes* what are you "Gordo"?

 The IM was what the GOP was going to use against HRC when she was 1st lady.... the IM was a GOP concept from way back when.. and right up until Obama used it..