Posted on 12/27/2011 11:20:59 AM PST by nickcarraway
If anybody actually cares about integrity and freedom, this latest news should be big trouble for Newt Gingrich. Somebody (I need to find out who) dug up this old memo from Gingrich praising Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health care plan in fulsome terms, and especially praising its individual mandate to buy health insurance:
The individual mandate requires those who earn enough to afford insurance to purchase coverage, and subsidies will be made available to those individuals who cannot afford insurance on their own. We agree strongly with this principle, but the details are crucial when it comes to the structure of this plan. … In our estimation, Massachusetts residents earning little more than $30,000 a year are in jeopardy of being priced out of the system. In the event that this occurs, Governor Romney will be in grave danger of repeating the mistakes of his predecessor, Mike Dukakis, whose 1988 health plan was hailed as a save-all but eventually collapsed when poorly-devised payment structures created a malaise of unfulfilled promises. We propose that a more realistic approach might be to limit the mandate to those individuals earning upwards of $54,000 per year.
On one hand, this isn’t the most astonishing news: Gingrich has been quoted for 17 years in favor of some sort of individual mandate, and this 2006 citation isn’t even the most recent one. On the other hand, Gingrich has insisted that his proposal was something a little different — some sort of “bond” that rich people would put up — and, also, that he really started moving away from even that “bond” mandate after a while because, really, the reason he was for a mandate was in order to have a conservative alternative to Hillarycare in 1994. At other times he has tried hard to play down or soften the edges of his support for a mandate. But this is unequivocal, and it is within the past six years, and it shows not a single hesitation about undermining individual liberty. Indeed, Gingrich’s only complaint is a class-warfare-inducing lament: Romney stuck the mandate on lower-middle-income earners, whereas Gingrich only would apply it to middle-middle-income earners. Gee, what a relief! (Not!)
Even worse, Gingrich is to the left of Romney on Romney’s own health plan. Romney at worst has only tentatively recommended Romneycare as a whole as a model for the nation; and this year, he has become like a broken record saying he would never impose a mandate via the federal government, and that Romneycare was an example of state-level federalism in action, unique to the circumstances of Massachusetts. Gingrich, on the other hand, wrote this: “The most exciting development of the past few weeks is what has been happening up in Massachusetts. The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system.” Those lines led directly into his discussion of the mandate, which Gingrich described as an example of requiring “personal responsibility.”
All of which leads back to what I said in my May 17 column here on this site, namely that Gingrich and Romney both flunk conservative political philosophy. I repeat now what I wrote then: “[T]he issue here isn’t utility, but liberty. Mussolini ‘made the trains run on time,’ but that should never have justified his authoritarianism. Essential liberty must never be sacrificed on some central planner’s altar of efficiency.”
Or, for that matter, on some former Speaker’s warped notion of what does and doesn’t qualify as “personal responsibility.”
Rick Santorum is every bit as smart as Newt Gingrich and much more dependably conservative.
Vote Rick Santorum in 2012.
I will find a conservative to vote for. I’ll let you know the name, if, God forbid, one of those 2 clowns wins the repub nomination.
Your job in promoting Rick Santorum is not to hammer Newt Gingrich. It is to hammer Mitt Romney.
Anyone who doesn’t hammer Romney is suspect in my book. I just consider them another naive conservative or a covert Romney-bot.
Newt has said he will dismantle Obamacare before Zero’s plane lands in Chicago. I don’t see a problem here.
Perry thought that Hillarry's efforts of government deciding our healthcare was "worthy" and "commendable".
Its a disgustingly slanted article by a moron.
In Mitt Romney can convince you to vote for a warmed-over Marxist, that’s your right. But as for me, a whole army or Romneys couldn’t get me to vote for Gingrich and against our Constitution.
A conservative candidate who brings together conservatives could win a 3 way race.
Conservatives account for 40% of the vote, liberals 20%, and moderates 40%.
If Obama and Romney split the 60% libs and moderates, then the 40% conservative ticket wins.
Just something to think about.
Did Gingrich do anything during his 20 years in congress to convince you he’s intent upon dismantling the constitution?
I agree. Hospitals are currently mandated to treat the uninsured. Part of those expenses get past on to the rest of us.
I’m beginning to think that the best answer is to get rid of all health insurance and force everyone to pay out of pocket. Everyone on their own....pay your own way.
The best most conservative solution is...
- No government mandates of any kind.
- Government should not mandate that the uninsured get treated.
- Government should not mandate that we have insurance.
But as long as we have the government mandating that the uninsured must get treated, then of course everyone should have insurance. I believe that was Newt's point back in '06.
This is the man who said rightwing social engineers were the greatest threat to American a few months ago.
Don't you realize you are just telling the3 left what they have to do to get their way? Anyone who can be fooled that easily, should not be president. One more time: the cost of paying for the moochers is infinitely smaller than the cost of losing all your freedom. You are just playing into their hands.
Translation to what you are saying: I’d rather turn the USA into the USSR, than allow one person to get what their not entitled to.
But as long as we have the government mandating that the uninsured must get treated, then of course everyone should have insurance. I believe that was Newt's point back in '06.
The American people were responsible for the '94 revolution, and I don't like how Gingrich took credit for it, then squandered it. But, yes, Gingrich is way to the left of where he was before. In 2006 he stopped pretending to be a conservative, because he realized it wasn't popular, and did an apology tour for conservatism. He was just following his consort, Arianna Huffington.
How about the bill he consponsored with Barney Frank in 1980? You think that was a good one?
Why would he promote that book if he disagreed with it’s central tenants?
I don’t know - why don’t you explain it?
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