There are only three ways this country could move toward universal health care. We could extend Medicare to the entire population, having the government pay for it; we could require employers to insure their workers, with government picking up the bill for the rest, or we could have an individual mandate. The individual mandate is the most politically conservative plan, and it is the plan Obama and Congress chose when they enacted The Affordable Care Act.
The plan was first proposed in 1989 by the conservative Heritage Foundation. In 1993, a similar bill was proposed by prominent Republican senators. In 2005, another such bill was proposed by Mitt Romney as governor of Massachusetts, which became law the next year. All these reforms included an individual mandate, which somehow was never a big issue. Romney even said, in a 2008 Republican primary debate, “I like mandates.”
Now Romney calls the Affordable Care Act “an assault on freedom.” You explain this; I can’t.
The Massachusetts bill became the model for Obama’s Affordable Care Act, passed in 2009. From what I’ve heard, the Massachusetts bill has been fairly successful, although a little more expensive than hoped. Massachusetts is the only state in the Union where the individual mandate is NOT a big issue, because they already have it.
But with three choices, why did Obama choose the the Heritage Foundation plan with its requirement for individuals to buy private insurance? He really had no choice. Liberals, led by Ted Kennedy, had been trying to pass Medicare for All for at least 40 years, and got nowhere. Clinton had proposed an extremely complicated employer mandate, which got killed by heavy business lobbying and the famous Harry and Louise ads, sponsored by the insurance industry. The Heritage Foundation plan, with an individual mandate, was the only plan Obama had a chance of getting enacted.
The main part of the Affordable Care Act squeaked through the Supreme Court, while an important component was found unconstitutional. That was the part requiring the states to extend Medicaid to a larger population than before. Ironically, the Supreme Court held that Medicare for All would have posed no constitutional problems.
Medicare for All is not dead; the state of Vermont has passed a version of it. Perhaps this is how Medicare for All will come to America: state by state.
Meanwhile, Republicans are spitting fire and pledging to repeal Health Care for All if they come to office. What would that mean?
It would mean that children who are permitted to stay on their parents’ policies up to age 26 will be dumped, and left to find insurance on their own. Insurers will no longer be required to cover preventive services, such as mammograms. Likewise, they will once again be allowed to charge extra to women, and deny coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions.
Most important, repeal would deny health insurance to 24 million people who now have the chance of getting it.
There is a great deal more in the law. For instance, there are provisions to slow the growth of Medicare costs, provisions that Republicans are calling a “tax on Medicare,” even though candidate Paul Ryan books the savings in his budget plan.
The plan does require a mandate, because otherwise people would be able to wait until they get sick, then buy insurance. How burdensome is that mandate?
First, the mandate does not apply if your income is too low. Second, If your income is low enough, you will qualify for expanded Medicaid, if you are lucky enough to live in a state that expands Medicaid, receiving a 90 percent federal match for it. Third, the government will give you subsidies if your income is below about $88,000 for a family of four. Fourth, if you still don’t get health insurance (and why wouldn’t you?), the penalty starts at only $95 per year, rising to $695 in 2016.
The Affordable Care Act represents a real health care improvement, not just according to Democrats, but according to wiser Republicans of the past.
Rufus Wanning is an arborist living in Orland.
One would hope that Paulie and his bunch of naysayer’s in Augusta are reading this since it’s the first, of what is hoped a very long line, of moderate GOP position’s on healthcare reform coming out of Maine Republican’s. Wanning makes both sense and his historical perspective’s clear and simple, which is what the whole healthcare debate and Plan is supposed to do. Question is is any other GOP member reading it and asking those same question’s ? Time will tell ………………..
The Heritage plan was only a defense against single-payer. It only surfaced in 1993 after a more liberal plan was proposed. When the mandate was adopted by Democrats in 2009, the GOP could move to the right and oppose their own construction. Republicans would rather have every individual subject to the health insurance market. I’d rather see the health insurance industry subject to the entire nation. The compromise seems to be Obamacare and Medicare. Better than before, but millions of low-income people will remain uninsured. That’s something the administration is not showcasing.
Always knew those Rs were shifty …
Gopher – you trolling again?
True and that’s why the ACA is the first step to what is already being seen down the road as Public Option eventually happening, no matter what anyone want’s to call it. The GOP can cry, whine, stomp there feet and turn blue in the face but it’s not gonna stop the inevitable. Even Romney is saying, in very careful term’s, that the ACA is going to make health care more affordable for more people than the current system does or can. In short, even the GOP’s Candidate has seen the writing on the wall and is in no hurry to get the press asking him ‘The Question’ now, right before the election, and getting the fannysmacking of a lifetime that’s gonna get the voter’s asking themselves a simple question, that being “Just what is going on in this guy’s head ?”
Like it or not, and one can well imagine the not-for-publication comment’s being made by Rove and the Koch Brothers right now, the ACA is a fact, affirmed by the Supreme Court no less, and when it comes into full effect the entire Country is going to ask themselves why it took so long for such a simple idea to actually be implemented. Here in Maine that’s a question that the State GOP Committee would be well advised to start asking themselves now, BEFORE the voter’s start asking it.
Here is what conservatives, that’s right CONSERVATIVES the world over say about government mandated universal healthcare:
Germany – run by conservatives – universal health care
Britain – run by conservatives – universal health care
http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Health.aspx
“We are committed to an NHS that is free at the point of use and available to everyone based on need, not the ability to pay.”
France – up until recently, run by conservatives – universal health care
Canada – run by conservatives – universal health care
http://www.conservative.ca/media/ConservativePlatform2011_ENs.pdf
“Stephen Harper’s Government is committed to a universal public
health care system and the Canada Health Act,”
All Conservative Parties in the developed world support universal healthcare for their citizens, except one, the American Republican Party.
What is the difference between the GOP of 2012 and the pre 2008 GOP as well as the rest of today’s Conservative world?
I think it’s the huge amounts of money now funding Republican politics.
With enough money you can buy announcing Republican caucus results before votes are cast, let alone counted.
With enough money you can hire virtually all of the Republican national candidates as TV commentators to say what you want said.
With enough money you can have legislation submitted to the legislature by Governor LePage without it even being copied from your stationary that you gave it to him on.
With enough money you can make the husband of Maine’s senior senator a multimillionaire while she makes laws in the senate finance committee regulating, or not regulating, your ‘too big to fail’ business.
It’s time that we remember that before democracy, the rich and powerful controlled all. The purpose of democracy is to limit the power of the rich.
When you vote for the rich, you vote against democracy and yourself.
When Republican Dwight Eisenhower was president, the top income tax bracket had a rate of 90%.
http://taxfoundation.org/article/us-federal-individual-income-tax-rates-history-1913-2011-nominal-and-inflation-adjusted-brackets
Yesterday we discovered that the Republican presidential nominee paid 14%. He won’t tell us what he paid in other years.
I own a home in central Maine and another on the coast debt free, my children are through college (public and private) with no student debt. Summers I cruise the Maine coast on my sloop. I have plenty of money in the bank. So, I’m not one of Mr. Romny’s 47%. But I’m voting Democrat.
The bought and paid for Republicans are placing our state and our nation in real danger.
Universal healthcare merely implies that all citizens are somehow covered. It can be managed largely by the government, by the private sector or a combination of the two. One thing all countries with universal healthcare have in common is that all citizens must subscribe to insurance, so as not to shift their costs to others. “Freedom of choice” is a fraud when it involves burdening others with one’s own responsibilities.
Fight your own wars, put out your own house fire, build your own roads, and make sure your food is safe to eat. Be responsible for yourself before complaining about others.
you may want to do a little research. The countries you cite have covered care for ER visits they DO NOT offer free care otherwise they do charge. As for Mass ask the people there how there health care is working!
Also for those who dwell on the tax rate paid they are NOT paying PAYROLL tax. They already paid that on the moneis now they are paying on the interst earned by that money.
Truth is a dangerous thing!
Nonsense. There are lots of medical services provided in these countries at no charge to the user, including free birth control. In France, for instance, women receive free prenatal care and neo-natal care so that any medical issues are spotted early on and don’t end up costing far more if ignored. Truth cannot be invented.
Nothing is free – someone pays for it (the taxpayers in these countries under the guise of government), that is the truth of everything.
Ignorance is a dangerous thing. For the most part the rich are not paying any payroll tax because all of their income is capital gains. Get a clue. The people in Mass like their health care, ask anyone but Fox news.
Your first point is like your last, 99% false. Those countries have free health care for preventative services, medications, check ups, and hospital care. I don’t know if they can treat Fox News deafness but it would be free if they could.
“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing
Drink not from the Pyrrhic Spring”
Truth is indeed dangerous, to your statements that is. Check the other replies.
Which one of these is the Public Option? If we had the option to pay into Medicare the additional coverage would pay for itself. In my opinion private insurance is the greatest burden on taxpayers because it drives up the cost of health care 30% plus of course the insanely high cost of premiums. Employer provided private insurance causes stagnation in the labor market and keeps wages down. So much for the free market.
Children up to the age of 26? Please….that only means the democrats have thrown in the towel to the economy and will not fix it while Mom or dad, not both mind you continue to foot the bill for little Johnny sits at home playing video games. Please….
Or little Johnny sits at home in a wheel chair. I guess Johnny should stand up for himself, or is that crawl for himself?
So at 27 he can stand up and walk and leave the house?
I wonder how many college students could afford to buy health insurance? Have you priced individual health coverage?
Thanks to the ACA my grandaughter who is in college and working full time to pay her way through it was able to stay on her fathers health insurance. She would have had to quit school to pay for her apondectomy.
When I was in college, we got free health insurance. Probably typical of a large university with an excellent Med School. Once I was out, it was the cruel, cruel world. But premiums were much less although maybe not as much when corrected for inflation. Group coverage was (and is) significantly less expensive than individual. Bottom line: fa,iliy coverage is often needed through age 26.
it may be that way in Minnesota but in maine, you get the boot out of the house at 18. You work, go to school and fend for your selves. That is what made America. Not this age of entitlement that is slowly decaying the country. What is is Magical about 26, why not 40? And while we are at it extend it to 50.
Sorry to hear about your grand daughter. Hope she is feeling better.
Thanks for your concern. She’s doing great, thanks to ACA.
Republican policies = hypocritical
If we could cover our expanding population (legal and illegal) with a tax that
amounts to an additional income tax of 1.5% (or 2.5% for the rich), like it is
in Australia, we would already have universal health care. For the universal
health care we already have in place, Medicare, we currently pay a 2.9% income
tax and that covers
less than 40% of the total cost of covering just the elderly population.
Medicare
costs in this country have increased at a rate that is 34% higher than private
health insurance costs since 1970. Private health insurance has risen to an
average of $15,745 per family (an
increase of more than $3,000 since Obama vowed to reduce them by $2,500.) Imagine what we would have to do to cover everyone! The problem with the so-called mandate is that it only mandates those who currently pay for insurance to pay more. What it really does is allow the 47% to get more free care and gives Mexicans and Canadians more of an incentive to come here for their care. The other problem, and the real “tax” in Obamacare, is the “qualified premium” amount that dictates what you must pay based on your income instead of based on what care you want to purchase. This was never a part of any Republican plan.