Steelfish
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Posted on 12/26/2011 10:01:00 PM PST by Steelfish
DECEMBER 27, 2011 Gingrich Applauded Romney's Health Plan
BY BRODY MULLINS AND JANET ADAMY
Newt Gingrich voiced enthusiasm for Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health-care law when it was passed five years ago, the same plan he has been denouncing over the past few months as he campaigned for the Republican presidential nomination.
"The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system," said an April 2006 newsletter published by Mr. Gingrich's former consulting company, the Center for Health Transformation.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Gingrich supporters believe that Gingrich really has turned away from his big government progressive ways because he says he has. On the contrary, they refuse to believe Romney has sincerely changed his ways when he says he has. For me, I don't believe either of them and don't consider either of them conservative.
But Newt just got finished telling us that 300 pages of it were 'pretty good'.
There’s a full text of Newt’s criticism here at the bottom of this article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/12/26/gingrich-in-2006-romneycare-is-exciting-and-has-tremendous-potential/
It’s no secret that Gingrich was for an individual mandate back in 2005-2006—this was originally a conservative idea back then. This was conceived as a solution to the free rider problem—i.e., what do you do about people who have the money to buy health insurance, but make a calculated decision not to, and then later rack up huge hospital bills which they can’t pay?
But the devil’s in the details of the implementation, and it doesn’t sound here as if Newt was particularly favorable of the Romneycare plan on that front.
It would probably be good to see what Gingrich thinks of individual mandates now in 2011 before assailing him on it. Last I heard he no longer supports them and gave an explanation why as to why these were found to be unworkable. If anyone has a link to him explaining this, do post.
There’s a full text of Newt’s criticism here at the bottom of this article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/12/26/gingrich-in-2006-romneycare-is-exciting-and-has-tremendous-potential/
It’s no secret that Gingrich was for an individual mandate back in 2005-2006—this was originally a conservative idea back then. This was conceived as a solution to the free rider problem—i.e., what do you do about people who have the money to buy health insurance, but make a calculated decision not to, and then later rack up huge hospital bills which they can’t pay?
But the devil’s in the details of the implementation, and it doesn’t sound here as if Newt was particularly favorable of the Romneycare plan on that front.
It would probably be good to see what Gingrich thinks of individual mandates now in 2011 before assailing him on it. Last I heard he no longer supports them and gave an explanation why as to why these were found to be unworkable. If anyone has a link to him explaining this, do post.
Now I understand WHY the MSM is pulling for him...
Drew Brees is a phenomenal QB. It is uncanny how he can find the semi-open receiver and perfectly place the ball so that only his receiver can catch it. In my opinion, he is the best QB in the league today.
The Saints are very well coached, and I would not be surprised to see them go all the way.
And I suppose you also believe Romney when he explains how he has changed his positions?
Let him. The ammo he's given the Republican candidate is a hundred times more powerful.
Ah, that’s what I was looking for on Newt’s current position re: individual mandate. Thanks.
Is that worse than serial adultery and hypocrisy?
A person can change their mind, I’m not opposed to this.
The difference is that Romney doesn’t really -explain- why he changes opinions—he just flips to one side and then back to the other as an apparent matter of political convenience. The cognitive dissonance he provokes is jarring.
Whereas if Romney were actually capable of putting forth cogent, informed, convincingly reasonable explanations as to why he changed from position X to position Y, then I probably wouldn’t consider Romney such a duplicitous bastard.
Wake up, dude: it's Newt or Willard VERSUS Obama. Choose wisely.
I'm confused. I thought Romneycare = Obamacare = Commiecare. Is that too simplistic?
Newt has also said that the constitutional issue is one reason why he’s moved away from the idea of an individual mandate.
Essentially we have always been mandating emergency room coverage by law without paying for it. Why was there never an uproar about that, but only an uproar over someone trying to come up with a way to pay for that?
Also, if you look at Newt’s full article that Forbes is quoting, his reason for saying Romneycare “has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system” is explained at the end. He was saying it would spur debate, not that it was the final and best solution.
“While the Commonwealth’s plan will naturally endure tremendous scrutiny from those who assert that the law will not work as intended, Massachusetts leaders are to be commended for this bipartisan proposal to tackle the enormous challenge of finding real solutions for creating a sustainable health system. I hope that Massachusetts’ initiative to provide affordable, quality health insurance for all continues to ignite even more debate around the subject of how to best address our nation’s uninsured crisis and the critical problems within the health system at large.”
There’s far more to Romneycare and Obamacare than just the individual mandate component—you’re forgetting the deluge of onerous regulations and bureaucratic morass they prescribe into law.
Gingrich is 1000000000000000 times more conservative than Romney, and anyone who says otherwise is either lying or uninformed.
Because he was afraid of Hillarycare, Newt begot Gingrichcare which begot Romneycare which begot Obamacare.
Four plans from four people I wouldn't trust on a bet.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum
Yes, that's very convincing.
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