By 2005, political elites were looking carefully at an Urban Institute study done for the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation. The study, known as the “Roadmap” and financed by the foundation and Partners Health Care, called for both an employer and an individual mandate, depending on the option politicians selected, as well as tax subsidies and a shopping service. Blue Cross, the state’s largest health insurer, and Partners, the largest hospital system, had much to gain from this solution. Blue Cross would get new customers and Partners hospitals would get a new income stream to cover the uninsured people who showed up in their facilities. The mandate and its accessories were now ready for the political process.
Romney loved the idea that the online shopping service would transfer responsibility for health insurance to individuals, Lizza reported. A document distributed by his office explained that the organizing principles of the Massachusetts law were “a culture of insurance” and “personal responsibility.” When he signed the law in the spring 2006, then-Gov. Romney told the assembled witnesses to history:
It’s a Republican way of reforming the market. Because let me tell you, having thirty million people in this country without health insurance and having those people show up when they get sick, and expect someone else to pay, that’s a Democratic approach. The Republican approach is to say ‘Everybody should have insurance. They should pay what they can afford to pay. If they need help, we will be there to help them, but no more free ride.’
Fast forward to Candidate Romney’s Michigan speech in May 2011, in which he outlined his own health care plan focusing on repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. “What Romney’s speech needs to say,” announced Politico’s headline, and the website then offered four possible messages: “I swear it’s different than Obamacare;” “Mea culpa, Sort of;” “Here’s why I could stomach the mandate;” and “Seriously, I’m offering something new here.”
Romney did not apologize for signing the law; instead, he invoked a states’ rights argument. While the mandate was good for Massachusetts, it might not be good for Mississippi, he argued, sprinkling his words with big-government overtones. The founding fathers did not want a “king-like structure” grounded in central government, Romney said, adding that, on his first day as president, he would sign an executive order to help states exit from the Affordable Care Act.
Fast forward again to February 2012. In a much-publicized talk at the Detroit Economic Club, Candidate Romney moved far away from the individual mandate and the model he once supported:
I will look at every government program and ask this question: Is this so critical that it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for it? Of course, we’ll start with the easiest cut of all: Obamacare, a trillion-dollar entitlement we don’t want and can’t afford. It’s bad medicine, bad policy, and when I’m President, the bad news of Obamacare will be over.
But the media focused neither on Romney’s clever phrasing nor on the substance of what he said, and laced in stuff about the horse race that Romney might win. They sort of reported his positions on Medicare and Social Security. An AP story didn’t touch on Obamacare at all. The Detroit Free Press didn’t list health reform in its bullet points describing what was in Romney’s speech; its story said that no other details were available in the preview the paper got from the Romney campaign. The topic came up in pre-arranged audience questions, but the candidate tip-toed around it saying only “The first thing I’d say to him (Obama) is ‘You say you copied (the Massachusetts law,) how come you didn’t give me a call? I’d have told you what worked, what did not work.’”
Also worth noting is that Obama insisted the mandate wasn't a tax when he was selling it to Congress, but is arguing in court that it is a tax. Everybody has their areas of flexibility, although some more than others.
Story here.
#1 Posted by Weldon Berger, CJR on Mon 26 Mar 2012 at 07:18 PM
"...and political forces pushed him to agree to it..."
This is unnecessarily vague. The political forces that pushed him to agree to it were, by name, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, and it was no small task for them to accomplish this. The first challenge was that Rep. Dingell and Sen. Kennedy, the chairmen of respective committees in the House and Senate which dealt with healthcare, had their own bill, which would have opened Medicare to all citizens, not at all what the insurance industry wanted. Ms. Pelosi engineered the removal of Rep. Dingell from his chairmanship, while Mr. Reid took healthcare away from Kennedy's Health Committee and assigned it to Sen. Baucus's Finance Committee. Even before his inauguration, Mr. Obama had requested that Congress not take up healthcare in 2009, and instead focus on financial reform. The Democratic leadership refused, effectively denying the Administration the opportunity to draft its own healthcare bill.
Still, Mr. Obama remained cool to the individual mandate. You may recall that when Scott Brown was elected to Sen. Kennedy's seat, depriving the Democrats of their 60-vote majority, and putting passage of the bill in question, the President suggested that Congress might consider a scaled-back healthcare reform bill, one closer to his own proposal, notably without the mandate. But Sen. Reid forged ahead and, dropping the "public option", odious to the insurance industry, brought the bill across the finish line.
Its not clear that Mr. Obama had any significant input in shaping the healthcare bill. Rather, he dutifully supported his party's Congressional leadership. Yet the press insists on referring to PPACA as "the President's Healthcare bill" or "Obamacare". Ironically, the financial reform bill, which actually was drafted by the Administration, is always referred to as "Dodd-Frank".
Mysterious are the ways of the Press.
#2 Posted by S Bayer, CJR on Mon 26 Mar 2012 at 08:18 PM
Man, I just love how the Feds get to decide whether the Feds are acting lawfully.
Yeah, that's the Spirit of '76.
NOT!
#3 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Tue 27 Mar 2012 at 02:36 PM
Indeed. He was for it before he was against it. Check.
#4 Posted by Mark A. York, CJR on Tue 27 Mar 2012 at 11:44 PM