Wed 17 Feb, 2010
In 1993 this man tried to kill everyone's grandmother.
For Republicans, the idea of requiring every American to have health insurance is one of the most abhorrent provisions of the Democrats’ health overhaul bills.
“Congress has never crossed the line between regulating what people choose to do and ordering them to do it,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). “The difference between regulating and requiring is liberty.”
But Hatch’s opposition is ironic, or some would say, politically motivated. The last time Congress debated a health overhaul, when Bill Clinton was president, Hatch and several other senators who now oppose the so-called individual mandate actually supported a bill that would have required it.
[...]
One reason the individual mandate appealed to conservatives is because it called for individual responsibility to address what economists call the “free-rider effect.” That’s the fact that if a person is in an accident or comes down with a dread disease, that person is going to get medical care, and someone is going to pay for it.
“We called this responsible national health insurance,” says Pauly. “There was a kind of an ethical and moral support for the notion that people shouldn’t be allowed to free-ride on the charity of fellow citizens.
[...]
But the summary of the Republican bill from the Clinton era and the Democratic bills that passed the House and Senate over the past few months are startlingly alike.
Beyond the requirement that everyone have insurance, both call for purchasing pools and standardized insurance plans. Both call for a ban on insurers denying coverage or raising premiums because a person has been sick in the past. Both even call for increased federal research into the effectiveness of medical treatments — something else that used to have strong bipartisan support, but that Republicans have been backing away from recently.
Only in America will you find a liberal party trying to reform health care by using a 17-year-old conservative party idea and the conservative party calling the idea the liberal party stole from them as a socialized, Marxist, government-run death camp.
4 Responses to “2010 Democrat Health Care Plan = 1993 Republican Health Care Plan
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Tags: Democrats, Health care, I can't wait until a big comet wipes us out, RepublicansComments (4)
coolbus18 says:
This comes as no surprise to me. The Democants have morphed into moderate Republicants and with that the ideals and philosophy of the party has become clintonesque(IMHO he too was a good repulickin’)When corporations and gov’t merge we see an updated form of nazism. The wingnuts will flip flop and people will die as the millioaires in D.C. haggle over just how much profit the insurance companies will make.
The time has come to mandate that the senate and house have to have the same health insurance as J.Q. Public. Maybe this this will get them to do something. Health care is a function of protecting our citizenry and a job that our national gov’t can and must do.If they don’t , then fuck ‘em and vote them out and let’s try a new batch!
Phuck Politics says:
@coolbus18 – Democrats are really moderate Republicans and Republicans are really fucking insane.
stunatra says:
You couldn’t make this stuff up…unbelievable.
Phuck Politics says:
@stunatra – I bet I could if I got high enough.