Newt Gingrich In 2009: Hey, That Individual Mandate Is A Great Idea!

BY Doug Mataconis   ·   Monday, January 30, 2012   ·   9 Comments

Newt Gingrich spent much of yesterday making his case against Mitt Romney on the grounds that Romney’s history with the Massachusetts health care reform plan would make it impossible for him to draw real distinctions between himself and President Obama on the issue of health care. As it turns out, though, Romney isn’t the only one who has that problem. Gingrich’s own support for an individual mandate during the Clinton years and even a mere year before Barack Obama was elected have already been noted. Now, though, we’ve got Gingrich on the record supporting the idea of an individual health care insurance mandate in 2009 just as Congress was beginning to debate what would eventually become the Affordable Care Care:

The real foundation, the most important part of this, is individual rights, responsibilities, and expectations of behavior. … We believe that there should be must-carry, that everybody should have health insurance, or if you’re an absolute libertarian, we would allow you to post a bond, but we would not allow people to be “free riders” failing to insure themselves and then showing up in the emergency room with no means of payment. If you have must carry, then the insurance companies have told us that we can have must-issue, and you will therefore have a system in which you don’t have to worry about cherry-picking and maneuvering. … This is the kind of general model we will be advocating.

The quoted section begins at about the 28 second mark, but the entire audio clip is relevant. At the time, Gingrich was speaking on behalf of one of his business ventures, The Center For Health Transformation, an organization that received significant amounts of money from the health care industry, including many large pharmaceutical companies. At the time, it wasn’t really shocking for Gingrich to say this because it was entirely consistent with what he’d been saying since the days of the long, hard debate over HillaryCare in 1994. It wasn’t until the right started turning on ObamaCare, as it came to be called, that Gingrich changed his position. Now, Gingrich says he was wrong for all those years. however as Morgen at Verum Serum notes, the audio clip is fairly damning when it comes to the case that Gingrich himself tries to make against Romney:

Well, here you have it: not only has Gingrich been a long-standing proponent of a federal health insurance mandate, he clearly and unequivocally called for it as part of the White House health reform initiative in May 2009. Mission accomplished then.
There is something else worth noting in this clip. Not only did Gingrich make the “conservative” argument for the mandate in dealing with the free rider problem, he also advanced a favorite argument of the left. Which is that the only way insurers could be required to offer coverage to everyone regardless of their health status (“must issue”), was to require everyone to carry insurance. This was ultimately the argument which convinced none other than Barack Obama, who remember, opposed an individual mandate during the Democrat primary campaign in 2008.
Romney is arguably even more compromised on ObamaCare than Gingrich, but it’s a much closer call in my opinion than some seem to believe. Call me an Alinskyite, but it seemed like Republican voters should probably know about this before the general election.

I bet they will after this starts showing up in SuperPAC ads in the near future.

Lesser of two evils come November? I cant see it.

 

Is there a difference between Romney and Obama? I have been critical of both Mr Romney and President Obama for various reasons but both being so different in terms of background, surly they cant be that similar, right? When the subject comes up of differentiating between the two I find myself scratching my head. The same head scratching can be said for those folks who ask me my support for either two, and when I reveal my support of Ron Paul regardless if he’s third party or not, it’s often met with the same rebuttal: “it’s a waste of a vote, its better to pick the lesser of two evils”. However, I just can’t seem to grasp the difference between the two men as far as policy is concerned.  

  

Sure, Romney has the business experience, that is unquestionable a difference and he has balanced the budget as Governor in Massachusetts. Both of those are very big props for Romney in my book… but other than that, I looked and I can’t find a difference between the eventual nominee for the Republicans (Mittens) and the incumbent, President Obama (at least not in the pivotal positions).

- Obama has maintained the foreign policy of an empire, just as Romney would do (although Romney said he would actually increase spending on defense) not to mention he chastised the President for pulling out of Iraq. No savings there.    

- Obama has continued to support even more of an assault on our personal liberty’s extending the Patriot Act and signing NDAA, wouldn’t you know it - Romney supports both. Liberty trampled on again.

- Obama passed Universal Healthcare as did Romney. Romney even is proud of his healthcare bill, (‘I’m very proud of my health-care plan and think it should be a model for other states to adopt’) or at least he was before he was against it again.

What do we have left? Taxes. Yes, taxes, death and Mittens oh boy! This is the same guy who didn’t release his taxes because he didn’t wantto show he paid at or under the 15 percentile reserved for Capital gains (between 13.9-15%) on over 40 Million dollars of income. That would show he is using loopholes (although legal) just like many of our corporations do.

Romney said recently that Obama passed 19 tax increases under his terms as POTUS. Most people on the right would believe that to be true, he is said to be the most polarizing president in our history isn’t he? Although the validity to those tax hikes in question has been shaky and even a few of the 19 suspected raises have been actually proved false, Mitt continues his assault. For the record, the Obama tax increases were minimal in nominal terms considering (the large deficit) and directed at very specific small targets; not wide wielding swaths of people and demographics as Romney would have you believe.

The truth of the matter is Obama has cut taxes too. He did so in his 700+ Billion dollar stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) he then cut taxes in the ‘December 2010 tax deal’ that extended the Bush tax cuts. Those tax cuts were worth $654 Billion and if you factor in the 250+ Billion from the ARRA cuts in his 2009 Stimulus act, we are talking 900 Billion in Tax cuts through his administration. I think its safe to say he has cut more taxes than he has increased taxes by a large sum.

Look at the revenue or receipts our government is pulling in. If we were seeing tax increases, wouldn’t we also being seeing soaring revenue? We aren’t. We are in a massive economic quagmire and tax cuts will not get us out of it. And if we continue to cut taxes and keep the budget as is or increase it, we will only cause even more damage down the road. And that seems like the message from Newt, Obama or Mitt.  

While I agree with the Republican field running for the oval office about the over-regulation that we are seeing under this administration; it’s not what ails us either. What we have is a political atmosphere where nobody wants to make the touch decision and cut major aspects off our budget or raise taxes to pay for the bills we have. Obama or Romney will never do it; they lack the thick skin and willingness to lead by example despite the consequences. responsible debt is one thing, what these kooks are proposing is simply not feasible long term. 

Romney has no plan to cut government just spend an equal amount or more and lower taxes for the richest Americans. Obama seems to have no plan at all and while he lowered taxes he increased regulation and didn't do anything to make cuts. Gingrich? He thinks we can save 500 Billion annually on modernization, he’s also the same guy who said Fannie and Freddie hired him as a historian... not a lobbyist. He won’t be the nominee but it further drives home the point. The 900 lb gorilla in the room remains Keynesian economics. Until we face the reality of the magnitude that beast has in terms of influence and destruction we will be here every four years with the same logical outcome: vote for a Paul (Ron or Rand).

Apparently the Grinch does have a heart after all?

Newton Gingrich, who is said to be the Tea-Part choice (it’s good the paper muffles my chuckles) for the Republican ticket for November is angry over cuts Mitt Romney made while Governor. Which I find funny because Gingrich said himself cutting waste and fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid program would save $1 trillion over 10 years.

I disagree with much of what Mitt Romney has to say as I have pointed out on many occasions, but this piece in the New York Post that Gingrich is trying to use against him in Florida (a big Jewish population no doubt) is one where I cant fault Mittens. Apparently, in 2003 as governor of Massachusetts, Romney cast a veto that would nix $600,000 in additional funds for poor Jewish nursing-home residents to get kosher meals.

Romney said it “unnecessarily” would lead to an “increased rate for nursing facilities”. That is because of the costs of Medicade and what it was doing to the budget. We are talking about Medicade here; which means we are talking about government money. Romney’s spokesman defended his opposition, saying the state was in crisis and the kosher funding veto was needed to head off higher reimbursement rates for Medicaid.

Of course there was stiff opposition. Jeffrey Goldshine, the retired CEO of a company that operated a kosher facility in Massachusetts said this when being interviewed by the NYPost: “I was outraged. For the elderly Jewish residents of a nursing home that have always been kosher — they should be entitled to continue.”

There was also Brooklyn state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, an Orthodox Jew and Newt Gingrich supporter, who also had this to say: “People who are kosher — it’s not a choice they have, everybody understands what kosher is. You have huge communities of Jews who eat only kosher and you have a huge community of senior citizens”.  

Let me state that I have no religious background nor preference and I feel no religion should be upheld by government and this veto by Romney is no exception. Then you have a Mormon in Mittens who is not only making cuts to Old Jewish folks but Catholics as well according to Newt (who is a Catholic) at a recent campaign stop in Pensacola: “Let me note in passing that Romney as governor imposed on Catholic hospitals provisions against their religious strictures” said at a campaign stop in Pensacola.

We can debate what waste is and we know what’s fraud, but when do you have to make tough decisions as to what to cut? Gingrich wants to make serious cuts to save money as he sees half a Trillion annually in savings on the budget if you modernize. How do you suppose you “modernize” and “cut waste and fraud in Medicade” if you never have to make the tough decisions? You don’t. Newt has no plan to shrink government and this proves he doesn’t even want to make the tough decisions when its time to break out a scalpel.

For Newton to somehow say on the stump: “he (Romney) has no understanding of the importance of conscience and importance of religious liberty in this country” because Romney made cuts to Medicade is insane. Of course it’s not popular. The Assemblyman and retired CEO of the Kosher Company illustrate that. I see it this way; no religion or beliefs should be paid for by government across the board. Secondly, Newt is using fear to drive voters. He even used the infamous “I know of a” to strike his point. “And in at least one parish I know of, the priest talked about the danger of a dictatorship that imposed anti-religious standards in all of us.” Stop it Newt.

Lastly, since there is “huge communities of Jews who eat only kosher” as the Assemblyman says there is, I would suggest they ought to pick up the check and not the government. This goes for all religious beliefs when it comes to Medicare. If I fault Romney for anything in this, it is simply not reaching out to said  community, thus giving them a chance to help.

If Gingrich is running to cut government and restore fiscal responsibility, why does he chastise thou that do? He went after Mittens for his experience at Bain he goes after his for cutting Medicare expenses when he was Governor. I think there is much bigger issues to cut besides Kosher food from Medicare as i think there is more honorable things than basically being a corporate raider, but Mitt's work history and his balancing budgets is in the realm, I don't think you can say the same for the Grinch. Maybe is realm truly is on the moon?