Speaking recently at The Heritage Foundation’s President’s Club meeting in Washington, DC, “{Ken} Cuccinelli argued both that the mandate is an overreach of federal power and that states like Virginia are right to challenge the law’s constitutionality.” That’s great, just one problem: the Heritage Foundation practically invented the individual mandate, as an alternative to the hated “employer mandate.” Here’s their reasoning; wonder what Cooch thinks of it!
The second central element-in the Heritage proposal is a two-way commitment between government and citizen. Under this social contract, the federal government would agree to make it financially possible, through refund able tax benefits or in some cases by providing access to public-sector health programs, for every American family to purchase at least a basic package of…medical care, including catastrophic insurance. In return, government would require, by law every head of household to acquire at least a basic health plan for his or her family. Thus there would be mandated coverage under the Heritage proposal, but the mandate would apply to the family head, who is the appropriate person to shoulder the primary responsibility for the familys health needs, rather than employers, who are not EFFECTS OF THE HERlTAGE.PROPOSAL By no longer restricting tax relief for medical care to employer-provided plans, and by restructuring tax assistance to help those Americans most in need, the Heritage proposal significantly would improve the American health system. Among the most important effects 1)Good health care not dependent on employers. Employees would be able to acquire health coverage for their families, and obtain government tax help to pay for it, wherever they happen to work. Casual or part-time workers, employees of small firms, or dependents of workers those who comprise a major share of the uninsured -would receive a refundable tax credit based on health costs compared with income exactly the same form of government assistance to buy health services as Americans working in large firms Thus the Heritage proposal would solve much of the current uninsurance problem.
This Heritage Foundation idea, the now-hated (by Republicans) “individual mandate,” was then adopted by Congressional Republicans like Sen. John Warner (R-VA), by Mitt Romney (“People have to take personal responsibility. I consider it a conservative plan.”); and even Newt Gingrich. But now, because it’s part of what’s been labeled a Democratic plan (only because Republicans have been completely obstructionist, hypocritical, and hyper-partisan about this), the “individual mandate” is suddenly evilsocialistcommiepinkokenyanmuslimevil. If it weren’t so serious, the only appropriate response to all this would be hysterical laughter and mockery. In fact, that’s not such a bad idea, come to think of it, for the people who advocated the “individual mandate” but are now cheering Cooch’s crusade against it. You couldn’t invent satire better than this if you tried.
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