Though Republican lawmakers now vilify the individual mandate for health insurance coverage as unconstitutional, the provision has long roots in conservative health care philosophy and has been supported by such GOP presidents as Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush.

Republican administrations were among the first to embrace the concept of forcing individuals to buy coverage. Nixon — hoping to stave off the single-payer ethos of many congressional Democrats — explored the idea in the 1970s, though Republicans now dismiss those discussions as the byproduct of a moderate president searching for a domestic policy victory.

Less than two decades later, in what remains an unexplored chapter of health care history, a surprising supporter of the individual mandate was George H.W. Bush. According to contemporaneous reporting, Bush used "the tax system to ‘encourage and empower’ individuals to buy health insurance and would enact insurance market reforms that make it possible for everyone — even if they have pre-existing health problems — to get insurance." In short: individuals would be mandated to buy catastrophic health insurance. The cost of that coverage would be tied to income, meaning that the poorer you were, the less expensive your policy would be.

 

Coverage of Preventive Services Provisions of Selected Current Health –

CONTINUED

Individual Mandate, Now Vilified By GOP, Was Supported By George H.W. Bush

Owned

Sorry Republicans. Your cost-control ideas belong to Democrats now.

Neera Tanden March 29, 2010 | 1:00 am

 

On the day of the historic House vote on the Senate bill and reconciliation package, conservative pundit David Frum wrote a piece titled "Waterloo," in which he stated that “conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.” Frum argued that, by opposing the entire legislative effort as a means to cripple the Obama presidency and refusing to negotiate in good faith, the Republicans ensured they would have no part in shaping the most significant domestic policy of the last 40 years. “Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan," Frum explained. "Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views?” The answer is clearly yes.

And the consequences will be large. By unilaterally ceding control over the contents of the health bill, Republicans have also ceded any claim to the policy innovations therein. Ideas that were once championed by conservatives have now been adopted by Democrats, who have become their primary champion. Going forward, if they are successful, these ideas will be permanently considered Democratic achievements.

One of the best examples of such a conservative issue is cost control. For decades, cost-conscious Republicans criticized the way health care is delivered in our country. They argued that generous insurance plans, combined with the fee-for-service system in which doctors, hospitals, and other providers are reimbursed for each point of service they deliver, creates incentives for overuse. Incentives work in health care like they do in other markets: If you pay someone to do something, they will do it a lot. Because we must pay for each check-up, each consultation, each test, the system encourages providers to approve unnecessary care for higher payment. So the fee-for-service system rewards volume over quality of care. By realigning the system to provide better market incentives, moderate conservatives argued, we could wring billions of wasted dollars out of the system. (Many also contended that we should control costs from the opposite direction, making consumers responsible for more of the cost for each service, and therefore reducing their incentive to "overconsume" health care.)

Liberals, in turn, defended this fee-for-service system from its critics, arguing that any alternative would limit access to needed care. They wanted to ensure that doctors and consumers had the primary say over health care, and fee-for-service, they argued, was the best way to guarantee that. They didn’t talk about "death panels," of course, but they did imply that a system which encouraged doctors to control costs might ultimately mean patients would suffer. CONTINUED

Owned | The New Republic

Hopefully the Main Stream Media gives him the same type of coverage he has given to those guilty or otherwise.

CREW, VoteVets File IRS, FTC Complaints Against Sean Hannity Charity Freedom Concerts

First Posted: 03-29-10 11:13 AM   |   Updated: 03-29-10 02:52 PM

 

Freedom Concerts, Sean Hannity’s scholarship charity for the children of fallen soldiers, has violated its charitable tax status, according to a Washington advocacy group.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington alleges that Hannity’s Freedom Concerts has "engaged in deceptive and illegal marketing practices by suggesting that all concert ticket sale revenue goes directly to scholarships for children of killed and wounded service members."

CREW will host a joint press conference Monday with VoteVets.org discussing complaints with the IRS and the Federal Trade Commission about Freedom Concert, Freedom Alliance, and Lt. Col. Oliver North.

Freedom Concerts, which is part of Freedom Alliance, is operated by Premier Marketing, according to conservative blogger Debbie Schlussel and CREW. Premier Marketing is operated by Duane Ward, the speaking engagement agent for both Sean Hannity and Oliver North, according to Schlussel. North is the founder of Freedom Alliance and its honorary chairman.

A little more than a week ago, Schlussel called out Hannity’s charity for what she described as a "huge scam":

…less than 20%-and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively-of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferry the Hannity posse of family and friends in high style. And, despite Hannity’s statements to the contrary on his nationally syndicated radio show, few of the children of fallen soldiers got more than $1,000-$2,000, with apparently none getting more than $6,000, while Freedom Alliance appears to have spent tens of thousands of dollars for private planes.

Freedom Alliance denied Schlussel’s "false and malicious allegations" in a statement to The American Spectator:

Freedom Alliance has never provided planes, hotels, cars, limos, or anything else to Sean. Sean gets nothing from Freedom Alliance except our gratitude for his personal generosity and for all he has done to help the troops and our organization. We have never had to ask Sean for anything, he always generously offers his help before we have a chance to ask him. But to be clear Sean pays for all his own transportation, hotels, and all related expenses for himself and his family and friends and staff, which over the years has added up to tens of thousands of dollars. He does not use any Freedom Alliance Funds or Concert funds in any way, period.

Last week, Media Matters reported that Schlussel’s figures "check out," but witheld judgement because Freedom Alliance’s mission is broader than just scholarships.

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Daily Kos first reported on this story in 2007.

Hannity’s new book "Conservative Victory" will be released on Tuesday, March 30.

CREW, VoteVets File IRS, FTC Complaints Against Sean Hannity Charity Freedom Concerts

BE INFORMED! 

Republicans Were For Obama’s Health Insurance Rule Before They Were Against It

RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR | 03/27/10 10:14 AM |

WASHINGTON — Republicans were for President Barack Obama’s requirement that Americans get health insurance before they were against it.

The obligation in the new health care law is a Republican idea that’s been around at least two decades. It was once trumpeted as an alternative to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s failed health care overhaul in the 1990s. These days, Republicans call it government overreach.

Mitt Romney, weighing another run for the GOP presidential nomination, signed such a requirement into law at the state level as Massachusetts governor in 2006. At the time, Romney defended it as "a personal responsibility principle" and Massachusetts’ newest GOP senator, Scott Brown, backed it. Romney now says Obama’s plan is a federal takeover that bears little resemblance to what he did as governor and should be repealed.

Republicans say Obama and the Democrats co-opted their original concept, minus a mechanism they proposed for controlling costs. More than a dozen GOP attorneys general are determined to challenge the requirement in federal court as unconstitutional.

Starting in 2014, the new law will require nearly all Americans to have health insurance through an employer, a government program or by buying it directly. That year, new insurance markets will open for business, health plans will be required to accept all applicants and tax credits will start flowing to millions of people, helping them pay the premiums.

Those who continue to go without coverage will have to pay a penalty to the IRS, except in cases of financial hardship. Fines vary by income and family size. For example, a single person making $45,000 would pay an extra $1,125 in taxes when the penalty is fully phased in, in 2016.

Conservatives today say that’s unacceptable. Not long ago, many of them saw a national mandate as a free-market route to guarantee coverage for all Americans – the answer to liberal ambitions for a government-run entitlement like Medicare. Most experts agree some kind of requirement is needed in a reformed system because health insurance doesn’t work if people can put off joining the risk pool until they get sick.

In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon favored a mandate that employers provide insurance. In the 1990s, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, embraced an individual requirement. Not anymore.

"The idea of an individual mandate as an alternative to single-payer was a Republican idea," said health economist Mark Pauly of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. In 1991, he published a paper that explained how a mandate could be combined with tax credits – two ideas that are now part of Obama’s law. Pauly’s paper was well-received – by the George H.W. Bush administration.

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"It could have been the basis for a bipartisan compromise, but it wasn’t," said Pauly. "Because the Democrats were in favor, the Republicans more or less had to be against it."

Obama rejected a key part of Pauly’s proposal: doing away with the tax-free status of employer-sponsored health care and replacing it with a standard tax credit for all Americans. Labor strongly opposes that approach because union members usually have better-than-average coverage and suddenly would have to pay taxes on it. But many economists believe it’s a rational solution to America’s health care dilemma since it would raise enough money to cover the uninsured and nudge people with coverage into cost-conscious plans.

Romney’s success in Massachusetts with a bipartisan health plan that featured a mandate put the idea on the table for the 2008 presidential candidates.

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, who failed in the 1990s to require employers to offer coverage, embraced the individual requirement, an idea advocated by her Republican opponents in the earlier health care debate.

"Hillary Clinton believed strongly in universal coverage," said Neera Tanden, her top health care adviser in the 2008 Democratic campaign. "I said to her, ‘You are not going to be able to say it’s universal coverage unless you have a mandate.’ She said, ‘I don’t want to run unless it’s universal coverage.’"

Obama was not prepared to go that far. His health care proposal in the campaign required coverage for children, not adults. Clinton hammered him because his plan didn’t guarantee coverage for all. He shot back that health insurance is too expensive to force people to buy it.

Obama remained cool to an individual requirement even once in office. But Tanden, who went on to serve in the Obama administration, said the first sign of a shift came in a letter to congressional leaders last summer in which Obama said he’d be open to the idea if it included a hardship waiver. Obama openly endorsed a mandate in his speech to a joint session of Congress in September.

It remains one of the most unpopular parts of his plan. Even the insurance industry is unhappy. Although the federal government will be requiring Americans to buy their products – and providing subsidies worth billions – insurers don’t think the penalties are high enough.

Tanden, now at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, says she’s confident the mandate will work. In Massachusetts, coverage has gone up and only a tiny fraction of residents have been hit with fines.

Brown, whose election to replace the late Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy almost led to the collapse of Obama’s plan, said his opposition to the new law is over tax increases, Medicare cuts and federal overreach on a matter that should be left up to states. Not so much the requirement, which he voted for as a state lawmaker.

"In Massachusetts, it helped us deal with the very real problem of uncompensated care," Brown said.

Republicans Were For Obama’s Health Insurance Rule Before They Were Against It

This is why the followers of the Right and the listeners of FoxNews and other Right Wing radio are so uninformed. When a Congressperson can patently lie on a radio station, specifically in this tense atmosphere where Republicans have confused many Americans into believing that the Obama administration is trying to have a complete government control economy, this can only lead to Americans making bad decisions.

Wherever you hear or see misinformation, you must immediately challenge it with the truth. If your local newspaper prints false information whether in the editorial page, main page, or otherwise, write a letter to the editor and get it printed. If you hear misinformation on the Radio, call in to the program and get on the air and correct it (you may have to be benignly deceptive to get on air by agreeing with the fallacy when being screened by the screener). Correct the misinformation with a tweet. Do not stay silent ever. At the gym or anywhere, if you hear misinformation, respectfully challenge it.

The country is getting populated with either the walking misinformed or the ignorant. We cannot survive that.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is continuing to denounce what she says is a pattern of government takeovers of the economy — going so far as to say that the economy used to be totally private.

"And what we saw this Tuesday, once the president signed the health care bill at the 11th hour in the morning on Tuesday, that effected 51% government takeover of the private economy," Bachmann said on Wednesday, during an interview with North Dakota talk radio host Scott Hennen. "It is really quite sobering what has happened. From 100% of our economy was private prior to September of 2008, but as of Tuesday, the federal government has now taken ownership or control of 51% of the private economy."

Before September 2008 — presumably in reference to the TARP bailout of Wall Street — one hundred percent of the economy was private? Bachmann has previously made the tautological statement 100% of the "private economy" was private at a given time, but now she’s starting to go even further.

Bachmann also accused the Democrats and the media of smearing the Tea Partiers who came to Washington for the health care vote last weekend, by fabricating claims of misbehavior. "The media wants you to believe that tea party patriots are toothless hillbillies," said Bachmann, who instead cast the tea partiers as intelligent, educated and professional people. "This is a very sophisticated crowd. And then these charges from Democrats that they were spit upon, that there were racial epithets — there’s no one who saw anything."

Bachmann: ’100% Of Our Economy Was Private’ Before September 2008 | TPMDC

MARK S. SMITH and ROBERT BURNS | 03/26/10 11:29 AM |

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed on Friday to sharp cuts in the nuclear arsenals of both nations in the most comprehensive arms control treaty in two decades. "We have turned words into action," Obama declared.

Obama said the pact, to be signed April 8 in Prague, was part of his effort to "reset" relations with Russia and a step on a path toward "the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons."

The agreement would require both sides to reduce their arsenals of long-range nuclear weapons by about a third, from 2,200 now to 1,500 each. The pact, replacing and expanding a 1991 treaty that expired in December, was a gesture toward improved U.S.-Russian relations that have been badly frayed.

The reductions would still leave both sides with immense arsenals – and the ability to easily annihilate each other.

"In many ways, nuclear weapons represent both the darkest days of the Cold War, and the most troubling threats of our time. Today, we have taken another step forward in leaving behind the legacy of the 20th century while building a more secure future for our children," Obama said at the White House.

In Russia, Medvedev’s spokeswoman Natalya Timakova told the Interfax news agency, "This treaty reflects the balance of interests of both nations."

Both sides would have seven years after the treaty’s ratification to carry out the approximately 30 percent reduction in long-range nuclear weapons. The agreement also calls for smaller cuts to warheads and bombs based on planes, ships and land.

"We have turned words into action. We have made progress that is clear and concrete. And we have demonstrated the importance of American leadership – and American partnership – on behalf of our own security, and the world’s," Obama said.

Though the agreement must still be ratified by the Senate and the Russian Duma before it takes effect, Obama and Medvedev plan to sign it next month in Prague, the city where last April, Obama delivered his signature speech on arms control.

New US-Russia Nuclear Pact: Obama, Medvedev Sign Off On ‘Landmark’ Arms Accord

While Senate Democrats held a press conference celebrating their latest health care reform victory on Thursday afternoon, a Republican slipped into the chamber to move a bill that would extend soon-to-expire enhanced unemployment benefits — paid for with $10 billion in unused funds from the stimulus bill.

With Democrats caught off guard, the clock started ticking on the bill’s slog through the legislative process. Democratic leaders, who had planned to introduce the same bill without using funds committed to the stimulus, trudged into the chamber as Sen. Tom Coburn launched into an epic speech on the perils of deficit spending.

"We’re going to be like the Athenian Empire," warned the Oklahoma Republican, standing alone on the Republican side of the room. "The real thing going on outside Washington is the fear that that’s happening to us."

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) slumped in his chair, rubbing his temples in apparent agony.

After about 20 minutes, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) interrupted Coburn to ask: "How long are you going to talk?"

Coburn said he planned to talk for another 45 minutes. Reid turned around and left the room. He eventually returned with a motion to table Coburn’s bill, which succeeded easily. CONTINUED

Senate Plays Game Of Chicken With Unemployment Benefits

Former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum has resigned from the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, Frum announced on his Web site Thursday afternoon — a move which suggests the conservative movement has cut ties with Frum over the straight talk he has been providing all week.

Following the passage of health care reform in the House, Frum made waves with a column for CNN.com declaring that health care had proven to been "Waterloo" for the GOP, not for Obama as Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) infamously suggested. Republican lawmakers quickly dismissed Frum, a prominent reformist conservative, as a mere "former staffer."

Then Frum said on "Nightline" that the Republican Party’s lockstep with the Fox News attack machine has hurt the party, and that "we’re discovering we work for Fox." That may have been the last straw for AEI.

"I have been a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute since 2003. At lunch today, AEI President Arthur Brooks and I came to a termination of that relationship," Frum wrote on his Web site. The full text of his "resignation" letter is below:

Dear Arthur,

This will memorialize our conversation at lunch today. Effective immediately, my position as a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute is terminated. I appreciate the consideration that delays my emptying of my office until after my return from travel next week. Premises will be vacated no later than April 9.

I have had many fruitful years at the American Enterprise Institute, and I do regret this abrupt and unexpected conclusion of our relationship.

Very truly yours,
David Frum

David Frum, AEI SPLIT: Conservative’s Position ‘Terminated’ By Major Think Tank

We need to act.

On Sunday night, many Congressional Democrats in tough districts cast courageous votes for health reform — even though they knew that insurance companies and their Republican allies would retaliate immediately.

Well, the attacks are here. Shameful, negative ads have already hit the airwaves. Democratic offices have been vandalized. Republicans are promising to repeal reform and smearing those who supported it.

But we’re ready to do what it takes to defend the heroes who made health reform possible.
These are the men and women who stood with us and the President to make good on a promise that our Party has fought to deliver for a century. And we will not leave them hanging out to dry.

Please chip in $5 or more to defend those in Congress who fought to make health reform possible.

These are the people who worked hand in hand with President Obama and grassroots Democrats to finally bring affordable coverage to 32 million more Americans, enact the toughest insurance regulations in history, and bring down costs for families, small businesses, and our government.

At a time of historic achievement for our country, Republicans and the extreme right wing are responding by pushing fear and intimidation.

They’ve launched a campaign to "fire" Nancy Pelosi, complete with imagery of the first female Speaker of the House surrounded by flames. Congresswoman Louise Slaughter had a brick thrown through her office window. A Virginia blog posted Congressman Tom Perriello’s home address, urging tea partiers to "drop by."

The Democratic National Committee is already fighting back hard, with a sophisticated ad strategy, events on the ground, and the best rapid-response program in the history of politics. But we need your help to keep it up.

Please chip in $5 or more:

http://my.democrats.org/Heroes

If we learned one thing from the fight for health reform, it’s this: Hope can triumph over fear, the truth can beat out the most vicious of lies, and our movement, organized, can overcome even the most powerful of opponents. Let’s not stop now.
Thanks,
Governor Tim Kaine
Chairman

Funny and so appropriate. This was Boehner’s behavior during his closing speech before the Healthcare Reform Bill passed.