Posted on 02/08/2012 5:22:35 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Sorry, Ann. I have adored you as a commentator, as you know, and appreciate your kind words about me in the past. But in discussing the individual mandate in your piece last week, "Three Cheers for RomneyCare," you honestly don't know what you are talking about. In the process, you are transgressing on my own work and past policy achievements, and grossly undermining the policy and political case against Obamacare. Read on, and I will explain in full.
It was me, working for and with conservative health policy guru John Goodman, who first rang the alarm bell for conservatives over the individual mandate in the early 1990s. As I explained recently in this space, it was we who led the fight to kill the Heritage Foundation health bill at that time.
That bill had been introduced by Sen. Don Nickles (R-OK) because he thought it was the conservative alternative to HillaryCare. Leaving Heritage over the matter and working for Goodman's National Center for Policy Analysis, I went through the bill line by line and wrote up all the conservative objections, which primarily stemmed from the individual mandate. I then got my critique signed by 37 major conservative leaders.
It was the only time you could find Phyllis Schlafly and Ed Crane signing on to the same document. Others who signed included Paul Weyrich, David Keene, and Grover Norquist. It was a Who's Who of conservative leaders.
When I delivered the document to Nickles' office, he had the good sense to pull the bill. Stuart Butler was furious with me, and it has ruined our previously close friendship to this day. I received awards for this work from the American Conservative Union and the Eagle Forum. That is because the Heritage health plan with its individual mandate was detested throughout...
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
You would have gone without insurance? Seriously?
For a month? Perhaps.
The choice is, it should be my choice to gamble on not having insurance. Government should not have the power to force me to buy any product merely for the crime of being alive.
Oh of course I understand that and don’t question it. I might have taken that risk for just myself too. But damn that 10th amendment. ;-)
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