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The Health Care Spectator
The Audacity of Rope-a-Dope
Obama promised a different kind of health care reform.
Supporters of obamacare claim the president simply delivered what he promised during the campaign, so the American people should stop demanding the law’s repeal. But that isn’t true. As a candidate, Obama actually campaigned against many of the law’s most important provisions.
Obama’s biggest policy switch came on the mandate that all Americans buy health insurance coverage. The health care plan Obama unveiled to great fanfare in 2007 and henceforth campaigned on contained no mandate. Hillary Clinton’s plan did. Obama attacked Clinton’s mandate relentlessly. He said the right reform was not to pass a mandate, but to lower costs.
“The reason Americans don’t have health insurance isn’t because they don’t want it, it’s because they can’t afford it, which is why my plan doesn’t have a mandate and goes further in cutting costs…” he said in Iowa in November of 2007.
“Hillary’s idea is that we should force everyone to buy insurance,” Obama went on. “But this is yet another issue where she is not being straight with the American people because she refuses to tell us how much she would fine people if they couldn’t afford insurance.”
Throughout the primaries, Clinton and John Edwards kept attacking Obama for not having a mandate. They said his refusal to impose one meant he wasn’t offering truly universal coverage. Obama’s response was to hit back with more attacks on the very idea of a mandate. He said it simply wasn’t realistic.
“When Senator Clinton or Senator Edwards say they’re going to mandate health care, but they haven’t talked about either how to enforce it, or how to make it affordable to people, then it’s not really a mandate. Anymore than if we mandate that people get car insurance. But [if] they can’t afford it, they just don’t get it,” he said on November 21, 2007.
Obama then tried to link Clinton’s and Edwards’s plans to Romneycare.
The Associated Press reported on November 26, 2007, “The Obama campaign circulated a memo to reporters yesterday demanding to know how Clinton would enforce the mandate, noting that one state — Massachusetts — has taken that route and consumers that do not get coverage lose their personal tax exemption, a $219 cost.”
On November 30, 2007, when the Clinton campaign attacked Obama for running a television ad in Iowa that claimed his plan insured everyone when it obviously did not, Obama spokesman Reid Cherlin released a statement that said, “Rather than spending their time attacking Barack Obama, the Clinton campaign should explain how exactly they plan to force every American to buy health insurance even if they can’t afford it.”
One of Obama’s TV ads during the primary said, “Hillary Clinton’s attacking, but what’s she not telling you about her health care plan? It forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can’t afford it, and you pay a penalty if you don’t.”
Hmmm. What does that sound like?
Obama didn’t fail to include an individual coverage mandate in his plan. He intentionally excluded a coverage mandate, and he campaigned aggressively against one on the grounds that it would be a significant financial burden on many Americans. That isn’t just my interpretation. Here is New York Times columnist Paul Krugman’s assessment from Feb. 4, 2008:
“You see, the Obama campaign has demonized the idea of mandates — most recently in a scare-tactics mailer sent to voters that bears a striking resemblance to the ‘Harry and Louise’ ads run by the insurance lobby in 1993, ads that helped undermine our last chance at getting universal health care.”
Yet despite “demonizing the idea of mandates” during the campaign, Obama reversed himself and embraced mandates only six months after being sworn in as president.
On July 17, 2009, Obama told CBS News, “During the campaign I was opposed to this idea because my general attitude was the reason people don’t have health insurance is not because they don’t want it, it’s because they can’t afford it. And if you make it affordable, then they’ll come. I am now in favor of some sort of individual mandate as long as there’s a hardship exemption.”
About the Author
Andrew Cline is editorial page editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader. His Twitter ID is @Drewhampshire.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (18) | Leave a comment
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Pingback| 5.15.10 @ 5:58PM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : The Audacity of Rope-a-Dope [spectat links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Enemy of the State #666| 5.28.10 @ 7:31AM
Liars do what all liars do, they lie about anything and everything. Last evening the Misus and I were discussing this very issue. One cannot understand a liar when they consistently lie about everything they do.
If I were a betting man, and I am not, I would take everything and everything this punk poser says and figure he'll do just the opposite. It seems to be the best bet even for a non-betting man. What has this country come to when a known liar is not held to account. I could say and be legitimate about the fact that everything this poser punk has done right from the get-go has been a lie, manufactured or not, nonetheless a lie.
This is bad on so many levels I cannot even imagine what is going to happen when this country has a full blown tragedy with this poser punk in charge, who then is going to believe it was not a "false flag" operation when he is known to lie all the time about everything and everything and the lame-stream-media makes not one attempt to call him out for it.
We should just admit it and refer to him as the great deciever. It sure fits the description and he proves me right on a daily basis. The look on the "wons" face yesterday when the FOX news person ask him to justify his comments was all I needed to know that he is truely a liar. His problem is he actually believes what he is saying. Looser.
Melvin| 5.28.10 @ 7:46AM
One day I was perusing the Internet and came upon some news service, that I have forgotten which, who was interviewing a Freshman at some collage on his opinion of his fellow underclassmen that were involved in a cheating scandal.
His opinion didn't surprise but it did raise my eyebrows. " We are under such stress to succeed by the rigors of academics, that cheating and lying were justified and made morally acceptable."
And he and his fellow collegians would do, "What ever it takes to graduate from college." If that means lying and cheating? Absolutely, "Yes."
Barry Soetoro included.
Curly Smith| 5.28.10 @ 7:51AM
Shouldn't that be "Hope-a-Dope"? Barack "The Destroyer" Obama promised a lot and has delivered less than nothing.
terrie| 5.28.10 @ 9:38AM
One note to the Author: Obamacare did - not - pass by a 50 -1 vote (implying that at least 1 Republican voted for it) This was a 51-0 vote (ie only dems voted for it)
lady kingdom | 5.28.10 @ 10:29AM
what a nice Rope-a-Dope overview here ...
tim| 5.28.10 @ 11:09AM
To"enemy of the state #666".I agree with you.Also,the news organizations will NOT take any politician to task for anything,because they are scared of being barred from that persons interviews.
WRTolkas| 5.28.10 @ 11:23AM
Dear Readers,
I can sum up what dear leader said and means:
"To the vanquished, the terms of surrender come in installments." Adolf Hitler
Best regards and a safe weekend,
WRTolkas
Oldefarte| 5.28.10 @ 2:37PM
Let me cut to the chase of Andrew's article------THEY/DEMOCRATS ...........LIED. They are all a bunch of out and out liars, and the American taxpayers-voters were/are STUPID for believing their BULLEXCREMENT. It doesn't matter what Clinton, Edwards, Obama, etc said while campaigning; since it was all a manipulative lie told to get elected so that one/all of them could then pass this WELFARIC WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION provided to their indigent Democrat base [and paid for by the American taxpayers]. It was all a trojun-horsed vehicle to screw the taxpayers!!!!!!!!!!!!
carnot| 5.29.10 @ 5:59PM
I have cried this from the battlements multiple times: the moment of National threat/National crisis is waiting out there, on the horizon, and this President will lack the moral authority to inspire the emotional and intellectual allegiance needed to see our way through the peril.
He has already blown it.
AintYoMamaPancakes| 5.29.10 @ 8:18PM
Skuuuz Me?!!! I don't thank Obamacare goze far enuf. Wy shud I haf too git up outta my komfertable bed an walk 3 hole bloks to a dokter's ofic, when THAY shud be kommin too ME? Hey, I'm tryin too watch "Amerikan Idle" hear, ain't I? (If I kin figger out how too git my brannew plazma HDTV set to turn on.) Then, me an my WO-mern got some movin' & groovin' too do, you unnerstan?
So, jist send me my wellfair chek so me & Sugar Boots can git on down to the store and git us some oh them krab laigs with our fuud stamps. All you dimwit Repubs keep workin hard, you here? That way, I ain't got too -- and thu Goobermint kin take keer uh me with YER money. Parddy Harddy on Yer Day Off!
Purpleguy| 5.30.10 @ 1:50AM
Did you miss the part were Congress creates the bills, amends the bills, and passes the bills for the President to sign into law?
Perhaps if some of the Party of No Congress had signed up, he could have gotten closer to his promise. Nevertheless, it is a start, but if you don't want to participate, pay the fine and go get your own insurance ... some mandate.
No jail time, no lockup, just pay your $2000 and you can be left all alone with your health concerns. I'm sure you won't be missed. let's see if you do opt out. BTW - your entire state can opt out from the Comprehensive plan - did you know that? Or did Fixed News miss telling you that?
John Navratil| 5.31.10 @ 10:03AM
So, if the Republicans had agreed with B.O., B.O. would have had bipartisan support?
What a load. If Purpleguy would begin agreeing with me, then I would have less disagreements with Purpleguy. Sounds like good advice to me.
RacerJim| 5.31.10 @ 12:21PM
Hey Purpleguy,
The reason no Republican in Congress signed up was because every Republican in Congress knew Obama was lying. A lie is no place to start, so if you want others to participate, first you need to quit lying and start telling the truth.
Or have ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, NYT, WaPo, DailyKos, MoveOn and Organizing for America forgot to tell you that?
fjdk| 7.1.10 @ 3:51AM
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