In 2008, Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s primary argumentover health-care reform boiled down to this: the “individualmandate,” the idea that all Americans ought to be required to buyhealth insurance.
At the time, their dispute centered on whether a reform law couldachieve universal coverage and keep down costs without it.
Obama won the primary and the presidency. but Clinton won theargument. the mandate was made an integral part of the law.
Four years later, the parties have changed. but the issue hasn’t,even though now it’s not an argument over the technicalities ofachieving coverage for 30 million-plus more Americans. It’s aboutwhether the mandate is a violation of the U.S. Constitution and thegeneral idea that requiring individuals to buy insurance or pay apenalty fits in with conservative principles.
Just this week, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich — who said aslate as 2008 that people ought to have insurance or post a bond —admitted he was wrong.
“We both used to have the wrong idea,” Gingrich said of he andObama. “I’m willing to say it was the wrong idea, he’s not.”
Gingrich, in 2006, praised Massachusetts’ health care plan, withsome qualifications, and previously he has said it was anattractive proposal in light of health care changes that were beingproposed in the early 1990s by the Clinton administration.
Romney, who has been criticized as a flip-flopper, told Fox News onTuesday that he wouldn’t change his tune, at least as it applies tothe Massachusetts health care law he signed and takes a great dealof credit for.
“It is fundamentally a conservative principle to insist that peopletake personal responsibility as opposed to turning to governmentfor giving out free care,” he said.
In an interview with the Quad-City Times later that day, Romneysaid he would have preferred to give a tax break to people who hadinsurance but that what was politically possible at the time was toapply a penalty to people who didn’t have insurance.
“The plan that I proposed to the Legislature is that people shouldeither have insurance or have the capacity to pay their own way,”he said. “The Legislature removed that latter provision and justsaid no they’ve got to have insurance.”
In the Fox interview, he also touted the plan’s popularity.
The other Republicans in the race, particularly Rep. MicheleBachmann, have attacked the two for their stand on the issue.
Eventually, the Supreme Court will decide whether the federalmandate is constitutional. a decision is expected next summer, inthe middle of an election year.