re: #71 Varek Raith

The same party that originated the call for an individual mandate for health care insurance as a way to make each person responsible for their own health care coverages has now disavowed that policy and claims that it is unconstitutional (after claiming it was the preferred alternative for a generation - since 1989 when Heritage first introduced and heralded the concept).

In fact, the Heritage plan included direct and indirect assistance to make sure that people had access to affordable insurance - subsidies that were mimicked in the ACA. It was proposed before Clinton was elected - and predates Hillarycare. It was touted by the GOP as an alternative to what the Clintons were proposing, but health care reform went nowhere during the ensuing period.

But when Barack Obama became president, he made health care reform a major objective. To encourage GOPers to support the plan, he dropped single payor (the preferred option for Democrats) and went with individual mandate and health exchanges, which mirrored the Heritage’s proposals.

The whole ACA is based on the RomneyCare (MassCare) plan, which was based on the Heritage plan. The only thing different is that a Democrat made it law of the land, and the GOP and Heritage can’t tolerate this, so they’ve committed to the destruction of a policy they championed for a generation.

But ever since the enactment of the ACA, the GOP and Heritage have been trying to rewrite the history of the proposal and simultaneously sought to destroy the program by any means necessary - seizing on every real and imagined problem with the program.

They’re currently hyping the fact that people aren’t getting to keep their policies, or that some have to pay more. Well, that’s no different than before the ACA - except the policies being eliminated in many cases is substandard and doesn’t provide coverages worth the premiums paid. The replacement policies are better - and yet the GOP keeps trying to make apples to zombies comparisons. It’s an argument that has traction since few people really understand health care insurance benefits and what all the numbers mean.