Gingrich knocked by right on healthcare

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) on Monday sought to walk back his controversial remarks on healthcare after coming under friendly fire from the right.

Gingrich, who's acknowledged that his discipline and judgment would be a key metric of success in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, had come under intense criticism from conservatives stunned by his comments on NBC's “Meet the Press."

“I am completely opposed to the ObamaCare mandate on individuals," Gingrich said in a video posted to his website on Monday. “I am for the repeal of ObamaCare and I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate on anyone, because it is fundamentally wrong and, I believe, unconstitutional."

The Web video was posted less than 24 hours after Gingrich, one week into his formal White House bid, criticized Medicare reforms included in the House Republican budget and offered support for the concept of an individual mandate to buy health insurance.

Gingrich expressed support for people “being required to have health insurance," and told “Meet the Press" host David Gregory, “I believe all of us have a responsibility to help pay for healthcare."

Later on Monday, the former Speaker again tried to clarify his comments, saying he viewed the federal mandate as unconstitutional but reiterating his belief that individuals should be responsible to pay for the care that they receive.

Under the 10th Amendment, states should be free to design a system that works best to achieve that goal, Gingrich added in an endorsement of a position similar to the one advocated last week by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who faces his own set of challenges in the GOP presidential primary because of the healthcare law he supported in his state.

Gingrich described Medicare reforms in the House GOP budget as “right-wing social engineering" and radical change. Democrats have been hitting the GOP hard on the proposed Medicare reforms, and the former Speaker's criticism seemed to play into their hands.

“With allies like that, who needs the left?" asked House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who authored the Medicare reforms, in a radio interview.

Ryan's proposal would transform Medicare into a voucher-based system for Americans under the age of 55.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), one of Gingrich's foes for the Republican nomination, pounced on both sets of comments.

“For several years, Newt Gingrich has deserved a lot of credit for thinking through a great many issues in a serious and interesting fashion," Santorum said in a statement. “But his criticism of Congressman Paul Ryan's Medicare reform plan yesterday was a big departure from Speaker Gingrich's often sound policy proposals."

Santorum said it is “out of line with conservative principles" to support an individual mandate, something he said both Gingrich and Romney have done in recent appearances. The Massachusetts healthcare law spearheaded by Romney includes an individual mandate.

The conservative group Club for Growth seized on Gingrich's comments to say that they exemplified why Gingrich, as president, would “sometimes be a major disappointment to fiscal conservatives."

Gingrich on Monday acknowledged that he “may have been too dramatic" in describing Ryan's plan as social engineering, but renewed his warnings to Republicans to tread lightly on Medicare, which polls suggest voters do not want to change.

“We just went through two years of Obama trying to ram something down our throat that people didn't want," Gingrich said on conservative pundit Michael Gallagher's radio show. “My message to conservatives is: Be very careful, and don't get in the habit of trying to ram things down people's throats."

Gingrich accused the media of using “gotcha" tactics to take his words “dramatically out of context."

“I don't have a fight with Paul Ryan; we would approach Medicare differently," he said. “I don't think that's a fight - that's part of the legislative process."

Gingrich had previously offered support for the Ryan budget. In an interview earlier this month with Time magazine, he said he would have voted for the Ryan plan, which he called a “first step" toward addressing the deficit.

Writers on some conservative blogs on Monday were wondering what Gingrich was thinking, and his statements are likely to raise worries about whether Gingrich has the discipline necessary to win a campaign for president.

We seem to have to parse terms a lot in order to agree that Gingrich got misunderstood yesterday, and I don't think that voters are in a mood to mince words, wrote Ed Morrissey, of the influential conservative blog Hot Air.

GOP lawmakers who served under Gingrich's Speakership, from 1995 to 1999, have described a style of leadership that sometimes thrashed wildly from one issue to another.

That assessment has at times been reflected in seemingly conflicting statements. When President Obama first launched strikes against Libya, Gingrich said that he didn't favor military intervention, despite having said days earlier that he favored establishing a no-fly zone over the North African nation. Gingrich's camp blamed the media for the confusion.

The former Speaker acknowledged Sunday that he faces questions about his ability to stay disciplined.

“I think it's fair to say that ... one of the tests on the campaign trail is going to be whether I have the discipline and the judgment to be president," he said. “I think that's a perfectly fair question."

First, do the budget. Second, defeat ObamaCare and win elections with Medicare and entitlements reforms in the platform. Third, when elected, reform entitlements.

Isn't this exactly what is happening now?

Obviously, no. It's all in one step - the budget.

Obviously, entitlements affect the overall budget and reforms are needed, but the $Trillions of new deficits in the last few years were not due to sudden growth of entitlements. Trying to "stealthily" reform the Medicare by putting it into the budget (without having made case for it specifically during elections) is standing the issue on its head.

It has no chance of passing in the current Congress, and only confuses people in the budget fight that they were winning. As a result they can lose popular support and lose both. It's an issue that's very easy to demagogue and doesn't lend itself to the sound bite of "cutting the big government."

Read the article in the post #2. Republicans beat the Democrats in 2010 on their phony $500B in "savings in Medicare" by portraying themselves as protectors of Medicare from ObamaCare. The Stupid Party is repeating the same mistakes they made last decade after they won elections, out of arrogance, assuming they had mandate to do things they didn't sell to the electorate.

I was in my car yelling at the stereo that night, but I don’t think Mr. Gingrich heard me.

What the hell was this “...have a National discussion..”? Would rather have heard something articulating a Conservative viewpoint on the subject (one even leftards could understand) and then specifying exactly what he would to do.

I’d like Bachman, Ryan, and my Governor, Rick Perry to step up and make their future plans clear. If I hear another story about Romney leading in the polls I’m going to hurl.

From Dick Morris - NEWT'S RIGHT - by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, 2011 May 19

In the 1980s, the pre-Blair leftist Labor Party issued its campaign manifesto to oppose Thatcher's Conservatives in the coming national election. Its loony, leftist proposals were so extreme that the Tory media promptly dubbed it "the longest suicide note in history."
The Republican proposal to shift Medicare from the current system to a voucher-based program of private insurance – in TEN years – falls into the same category. Don't blame Newt Gingrich for saying so. In fact, we have to hope that Romney, Bachmann, Daniels and the other candidates join him in distancing himself from the plan if we have a hope of electing any of them president!
Worse, the Ryan budget continues the $500 billion in Medicare cuts which formed the basis of the Republican critique of Pelosi and Obama in the 2010 election. It keeps the money in the Medicare system rather than spending it on other entitlements as Obama did, but that is scant compensation for someone seeking care now to stay alive!
(When I first endorsed Ryan's plan in a column and video, I was under the impression – as he had told me – that he would eliminate the $500 billion cut. I must have misunderstood him because his plan keeps that very cut on which we based our entire 2012 campaign. When I found that out, I switched to opposing his plan).
Gingrich was entirely correct in denouncing this part of the Ryan Budget. The rest of the document is fine. But Obama has, as we predicted he would, focused all his fire on the Medicare portion and that is what the campaign of 2012 will be about – unless the GOP candidate for president disavows the plan.
And the height of lunacy is that the Medicare voucher-based conversion is slated to take effect in a decade! Who can predict how medicine will evolve next week let along a decade hence? To hold the Republican Party's political fortunes hostage to a program that might or might not take effect in a decade is pure insanity.
So Gingrich called it what it is – "right wing social engineering." Granted, Paul Ryan has the best of intentions. He wants to keep the Medicare system solvent in the face of escalating costs, but >b?even he concedes that changing Medicare is not necessary over the next nine years to reduce the budget deficit. It is only in 2021, when those who are now 55 turn to Medicare that he would effect his changes. The House should drop the Medicare part of the program, repeal the $500 billion cut that the Republicans vilified in the campaign, and go ahead and implement the rest of the Ryan budget.
Newt has acted responsibly and in the best interests of the Party by describing accurately what the stakes are. Don't blame him. Honor him for saying and doing the right thing.

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