It’s hard to remember, but the health insurance mandate now being attacked by Republicans got its start in conservative circles in the days of HillaryCare.
Republicans then were looking for ways to attack the Clinton administration’s universal health care proposal and settled on requiring every American buy health insurance. That was, they argued, a better solution than a national health care program based on the English or Canadian models.
An insurance mandate, they said, would make certain no one free-loaded on the system. It was, conservatives insisted, in the tradition of individual responsibility.
My, how quickly “the truth” changes its shape.
A HISTORICAL REVIEW written by Michael Cooper for Wednesday’s New York Times tells the story:
“ . . . The concept that people should be required to buy health coverage was fleshed out more than two decades ago by a number of conservative economists, embraced by scholars at conservative research groups, including the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute and championed, for a time, by Republicans in the Senate.
“The individual mandate, as it is known, was seen then as a conservative alternative to some of the health care approaches favored by liberals — like creating a national health service or requiring employers to provide health insurance.
“ . . . It is now Republicans and conservatives who oppose the individual mandate, arguing that it is unconstitutional, while Democrats, who were long resistant to it, are its biggest defenders.
“Democratic health care analysts have been taken aback by the speed with which Republicans have made the individual mandate a symbol of socialist totalitarianism to much of their base.
“‘I noted the irony of a Republican idea being the source of Republican opposition,’” said Neera Tanden, president of the center for American Progress, a liberal research group, who served in the Obama administration and as the policy director for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008.
“ . . . These shifting political winds have become a major factor in the presidential campaign. Mitt Romney is often challenged by Republican rivals about the health care law he signed as governor of Massachusetts, which also contains an insurance mandate. Mr. Gingrich is often asked about his years of support for the idea. And Mr. Obama — who opposed the individual mandate four years ago as a candidate, but came to accept it as president — is now waiting to see whether the Supreme Court upholds the idea or strikes it down.
“ . . . Some conservatives originally saw the individual mandate as a way to make certain that uninsured people who become ill or injured — but were still entitled by law to medical treatment — did not push the cost of their care onto others.”
President Bill Clinton, however, opposed it because it was “a business mandate,” which would require citizens to enrich health insurance companies. His solution was to require employers to provide health coverage for their employees. In response, a large group of Republican senators, including Bob Dole of Kansas, proposed a bill that would require individuals, not employers, to buy coverage.
AH, WELL, so the politics of health care have made a 180-degree switch all in the lifetime of a college freshman. The story is worth remembering as the campaign continues. Recalling this colossal flip-flop gives balance and perspective to the debate. The lesson is that if you are absolutely certain about any political precept, you are very likely to be absolutely wrong.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
