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Political Hay
The Free Rider Problem
Why Mitt Romney’s mandates could complicate the legal case against Obamacare too.
Last week, Mitt Romney formally announced he was running for president. On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals will hear arguments on whether to reverse a Florida judge’s ruling that key portions of President Obama’s federal health care overhaul are unconstitutional.
Romney agrees that the new federal law is unconstitutional, as argued by 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business in their lawsuit. Whatever the courts decide, he also favors the law’s repeal. But as long as Romney continues to defend the individual mandate, the main front in the constitutional battle over Obamacare, his candidacy could undermine both positions.
As governor of Massachusetts, one of Romney’s biggest legislative accomplishments was a bill promoting universal medical insurance coverage. While the Democratic-controlled legislature pushed the proposal further to the left, from its inception it shared the basic design of Obamacare: a mandate requiring individuals to purchase health insurance, government-run insurance exchanges, and subsidies for those who cannot afford coverage.
State-level mandates do not raise the same constitutional questions as federal mandates. Romney has taken pains to say that what might fit in Massachusetts, which already had a relatively small uninsured population, would not work in other states. But he also continues to defend his health care law as something that did work for Massachusetts, including the individual mandate.
Politically, the problem is obvious. The similarities between the two plans make it impossible for Romney to argue against Obamacare as forcefully as he otherwise could. The plain fact is that the Massachusetts health care law has led to longer medical wait times, more crowded emergency rooms, and increased costs. Imposing the same policies under even less ideal circumstances elsewhere is likely to produce similar results. Romney cannot point any of this out. Instead he is reduced to arguing that Texas, with its larger number of uninsured, cannot afford Massachusetts’ luxuries.
Romneycare also undermines the political argument against the individual mandate, which opponents regard as an infringement on both the Constitution and personal liberty. To support Romneycare but oppose Obamacare requires one to lop off the second half of that argument, rendering it more procedural than moral. In an era with unfortunately little respect for the Constitution and the rule of law, this weakens the anti-mandate position.
This problem extends to Romney’s supporters as well. In an interview last week, radio commentator and law professor Hugh Hewitt defended the individual mandate in principle: “[M]andates at the state level have never been unacceptable and still aren’t unacceptable except to a handful of libertarian purists.” Hewitt proceeded to make all the pro-mandate comparisons favored by Obamacare partisans, hoping this distinction will prove good enough: “The Massachusetts plan was constitutional and Obamacare isn’t.”
But this individual mandate obstinance could undercut the constitutional argument as well. Romney claims the Massachusetts mandate was necessary to solve the free-rider problem, calling it a matter of “personal responsibility.” When uninsured people wind up in the emergency room, he once explained, “someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay.”
As it happens, free riders figure prominently in the legal case for Obamacare: the cost of uncompensated care substantially affects interstate commerce. Judge Roger Vinson, whose anti-Obamacare decision is being reviewed this week, acknowledged this. Vinson summarized the Obama administration as arguing that these “unique elements of the health care market” with “economic implications for everyone” ultimately “belie the claim” and “defeat the argument” that “the uninsured are inactive.”
Even if true, that shouldn’t be the end of it. Slavery substantially affected interstate commerce, but at the time nearly everyone believed a constitutional amendment was necessary to abolish it. As late as the early 20th century, most people believed the prohibition of alcohol required an amendment. But most federal judges today are not such strict constitutionalists. Two of the judges on the panel this week were appointed by Bill Clinton, the third by George H.W. Bush.
Since uncompensated care and the inactivity of the uninsured have emerged as central points of contention, it helps to be able to point out that Obamacare-style policies in Massachusetts have actually made cost-shifting worse. So will the federal plan, as millions are pushed into government-funded health programs where they will consume more care without the feds picking up the entire tab. Medicaid, for example, underpays doctors and hospitals by 42 percent.
Thankfully, Romney isn’t going to be in the courtroom in Atlanta on Wednesday. He’s also been absent from the proceedings in Cincinnati, where a similar anti-Obamacare lawsuit is working its way through the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But it would be nice if he were making the helpful arguments about mandates rather than the hurtful ones.
The political and legal challenges will collide inside the halls of the Supreme Court. Even some of the conservative justices will be reluctant to overturn a high-profile act of Congress based on the constitutionality of a provision that has arguably been within the bipartisan mainstream. Romney’s position highlights the long list of Republicans, including some of his primary opponents, who have gone on record in support of a federal individual mandate before.
In fact, people who have supported some form of a federal mandate either advised or influenced Romney on the Massachusetts health care law. That includes scholars who have been employed by conservative think tanks likely to file anti-mandate amicus briefs. All will be Exhibit A when Team Obama seeks to prove that Congress’s power to compel people to buy health insurance is a settled matter.
That’s why it is important for the matter to remain manifestly unsettled. If Romney is the Republican nominee, Obamacare opponents will have little choice but to vote for him. Unlike Obama, he will support its repeal and nominate judges more likely to be sympathetic to its reversal. But Romney’s history, in the context of a GOP that has mostly been AWOL on free-market health care reform, would make both fights considerably harder.
About the Author
W. James Antle, III, author of the new book Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?, is editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation and a senior editor of The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter @jimantle.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (76) | Leave a comment
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buckeyeman| 6.6.11 @ 7:06AM
There are two objectionable mandates in play. One is the mandate that I purchase a product for myself which I may not want in order to somehow further the greater public good. If this concept is allowed to stand, there is no logical reason why an Obama-like dictator could not order all citizens above a given income level to purchase a Chevy volt - for the greater good.
The other mandate is that some citizens are mandated to purchase health insurance FOR OTHERS. Since this mandate has been around since the origin of Medicare it doesn't receive much scrutiny. It should. Until we come to grips HONESTLY with the redistributionist philosophy of the left we can never expect to understand our place in the future. We will bounce back and forth from one scheme to another, always kicking the can down the road.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 6.6.11 @ 5:17PM
Once he embraced climate change nothing else matters to me. It shows that he is about as deep as a tea saucer.
amy| 6.8.11 @ 1:00AM
Pawlenty left Minnesota with the fourth worst projected budget deficit in the country. His record inspires no confidence. We are not serious if we nominate him!
Appleby| 6.6.11 @ 7:14AM
The one thing that has caused socialism/communism to fail everywhere it is tried is the Free Rider Problem. Hand out stuff and tell people that *somebody else* will pay (which is really what *free* means under socialism) and so many people climb on the wagon that it eventually breaks down -- and the people who were harnessed to the wagon by government fiat eventually walk away (or themselves become free riders) and nobody ends up going anywhere.
Trying the same thing again and again and expecting a different result this time is the classic definition of insanity. Or at best, idiocy.
Have you considered| 6.6.11 @ 8:40AM
Good post Appleby.
I would also point out that Obamacare was passed to correct a problem created by government.
It sounds great on paper, but when they passed the law that Required that doctors see and treat people who can not pay for the service provided, it Created the very problem that Obamacare is now trying to solve.
I also would point out that there is no Enumerated Power for this long ago passed law either.
They knew at the time that they could not just pass a law that said doctors must see those who can not pay, as that would run headlong into the 13th Amendment's Prohibition on Involuntary Servitude. Therefore, they had to compensate doctors for delivered care. This created the free rider problem.
As this became more and more financially burdensome, they decided that they would reduce the rate at which doctors would be reimbursed. This created the cost shifting problem.
The reimbursement rates are now so low, that many doctors refuse to accept Medicaid, and some are now rejecting Medicare as well, creating shortages.
I don't know if it went through, but I read some time ago that MA was considering passing a law that Required that doctors agree to accept Medicaid, or they would be denied a license to practice.
Bottom line, the path to hell is pave with good intentions. Our founders understood this, and that is why they chained down and Limited the Powers of the federal government.
Steve A| 6.6.11 @ 10:34AM
Appleby, Absoultely correct. The problem is that Progressives think that they are so intellectually superior that they can overcome the "errors" of those past attempts. Its the "we are the ones we have been waiting for" mentality.
dee see| 6.6.11 @ 7:32AM
Romney? RomneyCare? ---yet more capstone
'EYE-cons' at a time like this?
FULLY expecting Obama will be re-elected.
FURTHER expecting the second term will be the
time when 'continuity of agenda' will really
show itself for what it is with dissolution of not just the
currency, borders, pensions and culture
--BUT any pretense of sovereignty.
Seismic events seem to be the vogue with two
unprecedented tsunamis --the first on MAO
TSE TUNG's birthday in 2005 ---and the
other recently (3/11 and 4/11) off Japan.
---------SIGNS of things to come.
FINAL WORDS
-----AS it seems, in times like these, all words
end up being COW words ----this will mark our
FINAL post.
"Just remember, the Globalists, being psychopaths
and children of the curse of Cain, they
always let you know, in fact
they put it right in front of your face, before
they bring it on. In legal terms, your SILENCE
can, legally, be taken as acquiescence, acceptance.
Therefore, YOU ASKED FOR IT--- meaning
there's nothing out of order, legally speaking,
on their part."
-ALAN WATT
Got it?
-------YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED------
GOD-ward one and all.
FAREWELL
Dave Williams| 6.6.11 @ 11:14AM
Oh, can it possibly be TRUE????...that we will no longer have to wade through (or scroll past) dee see's random firing of verbal neurons? That alone makes it a pretty terrific day. Good riddance, driveler, and have fun under your tinfoil hat. "What a maroon!"
Controse| 6.7.11 @ 1:13PM
My money's on dee see forgetting he/she ever wrote today's joyous news only to return again capital letters and all.
Mark Shepler| 6.6.11 @ 8:08AM
Romney missed his chance last month to resolve his dilemma with his Big Speech on the subject. Indeed, he doubled down with the curious formulation that though many people suggest he should just admit RomneyCare was a mistake in its basic premise, that wouldn't be "honest" of him because he did what he "believed right". Thus he conflating his intentions with results. And more than that, with his very person. That is a trait more commonly found amongst liberals and other authoritarian types.
Since the Obamacare debate got going I am one who called for Romney, here and elsewhere, to simply admit his error as the only way to wipe the slate clean and go forward politically. Anything else smacks of the kind of base pride in our so called "leaders" that is ruining our nation. The pride that informs them that smart people, like them of course, with "plans" for more smart people like them granted enough money and power, can run the lives of 300 million individuals.
I made my case again in response to Charles Krauthammer's Good Friday piece in NRO on Romney's Dilemma and updated it after Mitt's Big Speech here: www.rightwingmuse.com | Romney's Come to Jesus Moment?
Chuck| 6.6.11 @ 8:32AM
I predicted in previous blogs if Romney is elected President Obamacare will become part of the American fabric. Romney is a big government socialist and as history proves liberal Republicans don't dismantle Democratic programs but they can "manage" them better.
Qwer Tyuiop| 6.6.11 @ 12:30PM
Yeah. The idea that Romney would repeal Obamacare is just nuts. He'll talk about it because he has to in order to have any hope of getting elected. If he's elected he won't actually do it.
The fact that nobody really believes that Romney would repeal Obamacare is what makes him a real threat to Obama. Independents and moderates who are disappointed with Obama (which is a large percentage of them) will feel safer voting for someone like Romney who is a Republican, but not a scary sort of Republican. A RINO, in other words.
Conservatives who don't want another four years of Obama will also vote for him, unless Palin's ego really is large enough to get her to run on a third party ticket.
canuckistani| 6.6.11 @ 3:30PM
When healthcare occupies 17% of US GDP, the solutions are not that palatable.
People will have to be cut from programs, means testing must become the norm and choices will need to be made.
Not unlike the public defenders' office, a two-tier system will be setup where junior docs and new grads will be encouraged to complete their "basic" in a public health scheme, then enabled to go into the private system once this period is completed.
Lawyers do it, engineers apprentice for several years and the client base is well served by these cost-effective mandates on the professions. High quality and technically sound, but would require some seasoned oversight to work.
Consider it.
blackwatch| 6.6.11 @ 4:55PM
yes the one size fits all narrative is not sustainable. health care is a service industry--nothing more or less than that.
we allow for differentiation of all sorts of services by locality, quality, price, etc.
for those who must or choose to be chattel of the government let them go to the government hospital to be waited upon by the government medical service.
sure is harsh and cruel to face reality--but the Golden Age of Free Lunch Progressivism is waning.
Like too little butter spread on to large a slice of toast.
JimH| 6.6.11 @ 8:51AM
The State has long used the claimed unfairness resulting from the ‘free rider’ problem to compel people into various activities, forced purchase of health care being merely the latest wheeze. Science has shown that people seem to have a hard wired sense of envy/ fairness, take your choice. And would rather have less for themselves then see someone else unfairly get more. Governments, Particularly progressive ones exploit this. The ‘free rider’ problem has long been a subject for economists, particularly those of a free market bent, especially among the Austrian and Chicago schools. While no problem is involving human interaction is going to have a perfect solution, many ways of dealing with it using market solutions are available.
Qwer Tyuiop| 6.6.11 @ 12:43PM
While no problem is involving human interaction is going to have a perfect solution, many ways of dealing with it using market solutions are available.
Do tell! Here's the problem. People who are young and healthy could, in most cases, afford to buy health insurance, because with a large pool of mostly healthy people the premiums can be low.
But most young and healthy people can find other things to spend their money on that seem far more important. Like cars, and ski trips, and flatscreen TVs. Boy aren't they glad there's no mandate forcing them to buy insurance!
Fast forward a few decades. Now they're old and sick. Buying insurance would now be expensive because they're old and sick. If they get the health care they need to live, it will cost more than they can personally afford. If they don't get that health care, they'll die.
Right now they can go into an emergency room, get the care they need, work out reduced payments and let the rest of the cost get passed along to people who bought insurance or can afford to pay out of pocket. Prices go up, and premiums go up. That's the free rider problem as it applies to health care costs.
What's your "market solution"?
Houston Rao| 6.6.11 @ 1:14PM
Back in India, you got the care you paid for, or you put yourself at the mercy of charitable organizations. Guess what, people saved for such rainy days, leaned on family, friends and community....for they understood that health care is not a right, it is something you earn. The only right you have is to earn and save enough to obtain the health care you want.
You want a "market solution"? Get free riders to pay for care, even if they have to declare bankruptcy. Watch how quickly attitudes change. Second, free up the supply of doctors so competition there brings down prices. This can include medical tourism too. And before you argue that medical tourism exposes people to non-American risks, remember that Canada exercises cost control by simply limiting the number of surgeries available in each year.
Nunya| 6.6.11 @ 1:43PM
Rao, I would also add that the Feds need to repeal the laws that don't allow medical insurance to be sold across state lines. Allow companies to market en masse across the country, and you will see premiums decrease, because the pool increases. Limiting the pool to those within one state creates an artificially small group, especially in some of the Western states. This results in higher costs to the insurers, and obviously those get passed on to the insured.
Qwer Tyuiop| 6.6.11 @ 2:12PM
I applaud the honesty, Rao. Is there any way we could get the GOP leaders to go on record supporting a health care reform plan based on the way health care works in India?
canuckistani| 6.6.11 @ 3:35PM
Pass.
They have a life expectancy 10 years shorter than the US. Corruption is norm, not the exception.
The only industry more corrupt may be telecom or internet businesses.
This is a country that has zero infrastructure, no connecting roads and we hold them up as an option?
Qwer Tyuiop| 6.6.11 @ 4:31PM
Sorry, I was being facetious. I was pointing out the absurdity of the suggestion. Although I do have to say that the suggestion is refreshingly honest about what the problem is and what a solution that avoids the free rider problem without a mandate would look like.
Otherwise the question is still open. With no mandate, how do you get people who are young and healthy to choose to spend their money on health insurance, rather than on something fun?
If you want to make sure they have the option of spending their money on fun things (no mandate! woohoo!) what happens when they get old and sick and can't afford medical care? Either you give them the care they need anyway (the free rider problem) or you let them die if they can't come up with the money somehow (the India model).
blackwatch| 6.6.11 @ 5:02PM
eliminate the possibility to discharge all medical bills in a bankruptcy filing.
that way if mr-I'm-never-going-to-need-to-see-a-doctor develops a cancer and generates a $300,000 medical bill he can not discharge the debt in court. the debt will follow him and ruin his future if he does not pay it off. A couple dozen examples of this in real life would convince the twentysomethings of America to spend a measley $100 a month on a catastrophic medical plan with a large deductible.
Go after the low hanging fruit and lets see what that does for starters. then do 50 state competition, tort reform, etc. pass each law separately and let's see in 8-10 years what each has wrought.
Qwer Tyuiop| 6.6.11 @ 6:00PM
Have you ever been twenty? Twentysomethings tend not to have much of a long-term perspective.
Another flaw in your idea is that if someone dies bankrupt, the debts don't go to the heirs. The creditors just have to eat the loss. That's a particularly relevant issue when the largest medical expenses are typically end-of-life expenses. On average nearly a quarter of all medical expenses occur within the last year of a patient's life.
JimH| 6.6.11 @ 1:46PM
Your faith in government is unusual on this site. Rather than try to reinvent the wheel offering my own suggestions I will direct you as a start to: http://blogs.forbes.com/aroy/2.....e-problem/
Qwer Tyuiop| 6.6.11 @ 2:56PM
What part of that article did you think addresses the issue of how to get young, healthy people to spend money on health insurance rather than on fun things?
Someone just up the thread there suggested India as a model for health care. That's brutally honest and I applaud the honesty. There's no free rider problem because basically you either find a way to pay for the care you need, or you die.
JimH| 6.6.11 @ 4:57PM
Strangely enough I was not trying to explain how the market would compel a young healthy person to buy something they did not think they needed. I was pointing out how when the free rider issue is raised by Statists that it is rarely if ever the result of a true market failure or externality. Most of the time, if it exists at all it is the result of market distortions introduced by government policies. In a free society health care would be cheaper for a number of reasons, a major one being the absence of government putting in unlimited dollars chasing after a limited supply of medical care.
Qwer Tyuiop| 6.6.11 @ 6:06PM
That is strange, since your response was to a conversation about the free rider problem. One you started, in fact. Huh.
In a free society in which you allow free riders -- i.e., in which someone can get the health care they need even if they can't pay for it -- the rational thing to do is to go without health insurance if your finances are tight. That's not going to make health care cheaper. Allowing free riders raises the costs for the non-free riders, and increases the incentive for people to choose to be free riders.
And like it or not, some people are going to need health care that costs more than they can afford. If they opted not to be insured (woohoo! no mandate!) then you've got two choices. Either you let them be a free rider, which gives others the incentive to spend their money on things that are more fun than insurance premiums. Or, you refuse them the care they need and let them die -- as someone pointed out elsewhere, this is the India model for health care.
JimH| 6.7.11 @ 8:20AM
Or you attach a lien on their property. Others may disagree, but I don't think anyone has a right to be provided healthcare, food, shelter or anything else at someone else’s expense. That said, I and others may believe that we should help the less fortunate. It does not follow that I have the right to compel you to do so. The main point of the article in the link was that statist warnings of free riders are overblown and to the extent they exit, they are caused by other statist policies.
Ken (Old Texican)| 6.6.11 @ 8:53AM
Folks,
if we "win" with Romney, will we have won much?
Heck yes I will vote for him for president if necessary to run Obama out of town, but we can do so much better.
I will repeat myself here, during the primaries I will vote for palin if she runs. If she doesn't run, I'm going to support whoever she supports.
Pretty simple.
russel| 6.6.11 @ 10:16AM
Agreed Ken , it's looking like Romney is becoming an Albatross . He's an elite and we have far too many in congress as it is . Wat too early so perhaps he'll be weeded out , for good .
Ken (Old Texican)| 6.6.11 @ 8:55AM
PS: over at NRO the tape of Sarah talking national defense and economics is pretty cool.
Michael Tomlinson| 6.6.11 @ 9:02AM
Good article, but I still have faith that the 2 "anointed Republican candidates" (the failed 2008 VP Palin and 2008 runner up Romney) will find themselves out in the cold at the time of the 2012 GOP convention.
Mark Jeffery Koch| 6.6.11 @ 9:47AM
The American people do not want a far right social conservative as their President. A nightmare for Obama would be a Mitt Romney/Marco Rubio ticket. A Romney candidacy might decrease the Obama Jewish vote from 78% in 2008 to 50% in 2012 and having a Cuban American like Senator Marco Rubio from Florida on the ticket should swing Florida to Romney and galvanize Hispanic voters.
I voted for Obama in 2008 like many other Jewish voters have serious doubts and concerns about Obama's attitude towards Israel and these concerns have not been addressed properly as far as most of my other Jewish friends are concerned. We would vote for Romney/Rubio in 2012 but like the overwhelming majority of Jewish American voters we cannot vote for a far right social conservative. I hope that Romney is the nominee and that he does not make a mistake like McCain did in choosing a totally unqualified person like Palin for a running mate. I have many Jewish friends who would have voted for McCain over Obama if McCain had chosen Romney.
The economy in America is in danger of going over the cliff and the race is the Republicans to lose. If they want the votes of independents, Hispanics, and Jews they are there for the taking if they choose a sensible, middle of the road candidate to be their standard bearer and an equally moderate running mate.
States like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania are in play for the Republicans but only if they do not choose a candidate to be their standard bearer that most Americans will feel is too extreme. Santorum, Palin, Gingrich, Bachman, and Paul will not receive the Jewish or Hispanic vote, and these two groups could well decide the 2012 election.
If the Republican Party nominates a candidate who wants to privatize Social Security, make Medicare a voucher system and rave and rant against abortion and equal rights for gays then Obama will win handily in 2012. If however, they nominate a moderate like Romney who has sound business expertise and a running mate that is qualified and can bring millions more voters to the polls, as Marco Rubio would, then Obama will be a one term President.
The question is not whether Obama is vulnerable but whether or not the Republicans will shoot themselves in the foot again with another unelectable ticket?
Steve A| 6.6.11 @ 10:39AM
Mark, Honestly? You want us to believe that you & your pals packed it in on McCain & voted for a socailist because Palin was not "qualified" enough to be VP when the guy you pulled the lever for could not even hold McCain's jockstrap in the experience department. Just save that nonsense for another site.
You & your "experience seeking pals" voted for the least qualified guy in any room he walks into, even today. It's an absolute joke & frankly it is getting embarrassing to watch Obama in action.
Mimi| 6.6.11 @ 10:41AM
The unelectable ticket is a RINO ! He just came out for GLOBAL WARMING ! He's DONE !!
Alky| 6.6.11 @ 11:25AM
Yup, man made global warming, Romney/Obamacare, ethanol and I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that he's for amnesty too.
George S| 6.6.11 @ 10:08AM
The mandate argument is tyranny in its most insidious self. Can the Congress pass a law forcing you to participate in daily exercise programs? Not now, but they can get the ball rolling by passing, say, a federal food bank program that mandates and reimburses supermarkets for giving food to people who cannot afford it. Then, the free rider argument can come into play: if people do not exercise, they become fatter and will consume more food, causing the taxpayers more money on those fatties who cannot afford food. Since this substantively affects interstate commerce, ergo bingo, Congress has the power to compel daily exercise programs.
Once the argument that it affects "The Cost" successfully overcomes the Constitution, it is all over. Everything can now be regulated as it affects interstate commerce vis-a-vis public financing. Second Amendment? Are you kidding... do you see what it costs to treat gunshot wounds? Right to freely travel? Sorry... car accidents used to put a tremendous strain on the health care system.
Shame on Romney for not letting the public in on how his program has failed the state. Instead, he'll grease the skids to tyranny by clamming up to protect his own political viability. That is reason enough to keep this guy away from the White House.
Joe Oliva| 6.6.11 @ 12:29PM
The real truth Romney and any true Constitutionalist should offer up is that even at the state level, there is no authority to get involved in health care. If the individual states hadn't gotten involved, forcing insurers to cover all sorts of events that have nothing to do with health (sex changes, addiction counseling, birth control, and all other actions of choice), we would have had a true free market that would have offered folks health care plans that actually served their needs.
Instead, insurers, being required to cover all of these non-health issues, have had to continually raise premiums and place caps on amounts spent over a lifetime. The addition of Medicare took the seniors out of the free market as well, thereby contributing to the rising costs. All of the problems with health care as with other social issues are caused by government intervention at all levels.
Since the GOP is nothing more than the new Liberal Democrat Party, the old one having moved to the far left Euro-Socialst Utopian model, we are screwed if we elect another RINO Romney, etc. The only candidates out there standing for true personal freedom and a restoration of Constitutional self government are Palin, Bachmannn, and Cain. If we chosse any other, you can simply re-learn the slow boiling frog metaphor, because that is where we will wind up. Guaranteed!!!
Nunya| 6.6.11 @ 1:55PM
George and Joe: Excellent posts, both.
Joe Oliva| 6.6.11 @ 5:08PM
THX
JayDick| 6.6.11 @ 10:18AM
Regardless of the constitutional arguments, Romney's stand on health care will make him a much weaker candidate against Obama than other potential candidates would be. His arguments against Obamacare will be easily refutable and will look disingenuous to the voters. His nomination will effectively remove Obamacare as an issue in the campaign.
Mimi| 6.6.11 @ 11:52AM
Just caught the Santorum announcement in Somerset Pa.....Gave a truly great opening SPEECH....called out "O", onto Patriotic musings that were terrific. Gotta watch this GUY, he's saying all the right things....No B.S...here!
Ken Royall| 6.6.11 @ 12:47PM
Not all uninsured people are free riders. Millions do pay their medical bills out of pocket. Not all insured people pay their medical bills either. Oftentimes insurance doesn't cover the entire tab and they walk away on the balance owed. The legislation guarantees we will have more free riders because millions of people will have their insurance subsidized by the rest of us. Millions more won't even pay into the risk pool (by buying insurance) until they become sick because of "guaranteed issue" which will create another free rider problem of a different kind.
This all began when government unlawfully forced providers to give care even though they wouldn't be paid for it. Health care services cost money and the government should not have mandated giving it away for free. Once you do that you eliminate the risk for free riders and hence create more of them. It is akin to someone showing up at your door and demanding food by force for free because they may go hungry without it. That is the crime of larceny and so is forcing providers to give away their services based on the word of the recipient that he can't pay. Argue the case that way and you dispense with problem.
Nunya| 6.6.11 @ 1:59PM
Ken, I agree to a point. A person who is having a heart attack should not be turned away simply because they cannot pay, neither should a person with a broken arm/leg, or any number of other "emergency care" acute cases. There should be a pool of some sort that can help these people out, I don't know that anybody would have a problem with that. Unfortunately, Obozo and his minions (Reid and Pelosi) forced this monstrosity of Obozocare upon us, taking over the entire system. It's unconstitutional, but nobody seems to care any more.
As to Romney, show this moron the door please.
Joe Oliva| 6.6.11 @ 5:11PM
What is needed to fight the free riders is the authority for hospitals to garnish any salary of someone who shows up at the door asking for free service. Heck, the credit card companies will rip you to shreds to get their money, why shouldn't a hospital have the right to sue for unpaid charges?
Oldmanriver| 6.6.11 @ 5:36PM
If they cant pay for it then they should not go to a hospital. There are religious hospitals they can go to for free care. For profit hospitals should only be treating peopel with enough money to pay for treatment.
Oldmanriver| 6.6.11 @ 5:39PM
I agree outlaw all insurance products, medicare, medicaid. These are the things that make health care so expensive. If everyone would pay out of pocket prices would come down substantially. You should not be able to pawn your risk off to other people. This eliminates free riders. Then allow hospitals to set up payment plans and if the payment plans are not met give hospitals the right to take all personal property until the bill is paid. This will cure our health care system. Everyone will be on a level playing field.
Wayne | 6.6.11 @ 1:02PM
Romney's plan is that he can prove that he is a better manager for socialist programs than Obama.
Steve A| 6.6.11 @ 1:11PM
Wayne, That is the definition of a true "Progressive."
fmm| 6.6.11 @ 1:43PM
Just read that this moron believes that global warming is real. Complete and utter fool.
Steve A| 6.6.11 @ 2:21PM
Romney is John McCain with an MBA.
blackwatch| 6.6.11 @ 5:08PM
nice!
Oldefarte| 6.6.11 @ 2:32PM
Jim's article is typically brilliant and extremely informative. His point concerning FREE RIDERS is key, since in actuality and truth, there ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS A FREE RIDER OR FREE LUNCH, SINCE SOMEONE A-L-W-A-Y-S PAYS. In the case of hospitals dispensing medical care and thereafter failing to adequately collect monetarily from the patient [while transferring and assigning the cost of same medical care to other patients' health insurance coverages/companies], same hospitals/medical care providers should be legally charged by government with stealing, prosecuted and sentenced to jail terms if necessary. If correspondingly, someone walks into a retail store and leaves with product[s] without first paying for same, they are rightfully charged with theft and prosecuted by the appropriate governmental entity; and this is no different than someone receiving medical treatment in a medical facility without having the financial means to pay for same, and thereafter said medical providers allowing these persons to not pay and thereafter transferring their medical care costs/expenses to the accounts of those patients of same medical facility who do have health insurance coverage is outlandish, criminal, corrupt and asinine!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oldmanriver| 6.6.11 @ 5:44PM
Exactly! We must outlaw all forms of insurance, medicare, medicaid etc etc. Only then will health care costs become affordable. Right now only a few are paying for everyone. There are no free rides you should have to pay to play. This would also solve the obesity crisis. Most people who are fat cant afford health care or wouldnt be able to. If they had to pay for their bad decisions themselves maybe they would think first before eating another doughnut.
martin j smith| 6.6.11 @ 2:58PM
Here is the deal: Romney was out before he was in and that is ( at least for me ) because he was a loser in 2008-and on top of that Romney care and on top of that The Global Warming bit and on top of that he is boooooorrrrrrrrrrring . He joins Huckuphoney,Donald Duck, and Newt the Byut--also Rudy G who prior to 2008 I had much more enthusiasm for, after his 2008 performance, not so much--even though I like him on some levels..
canuckistani| 6.6.11 @ 3:41PM
Why is that?
Is it because the GOP is vacant of ideas and permits the likes of Norquist and even Rush to coerce candidates into adopting DOA policies?
Romney is no dummy. He is a Mormon GOPer that won in Mass!!
He enacted the Newtie/Dole healthcare plan, and it is working. More citizens than any other state are covered, and costs are better understood.
Steve A| 6.6.11 @ 3:54PM
Too funny! "Sosts are better understood."
Honey, I opened the bill & our premium went up 35%. Baby, it's OK, canuckistani says Romneycare is working. It's all about understanding that more people are covered. You also need to understand math. It's going to continue to go up exponentially because the carriers must accept & pay for those with pre-existing conditions after the fact. See, feel better now??
martin j smith| 6.6.11 @ 3:05PM
Hey Mark, Rubio of yeas, but Romney--means you are not serious. The issue is NOT a"Far Fight Candidate" but rather a WINNER. A " far Right Candidate is so far to the Right that s/he is in the LEFT and that would be a RINO. As I said above Romney is a loser. I do not know where Tim Pawlenty stands at this time but here is another question for Mark: Suppose --I mean purely hopethetically it was Repu candidate X versus Obama--who would you vote for ? Let me put it this way, if X has to meet a certain criterea then you are suicidal because you would probably vote Obama again. Thus, fool me once shame on YOU fool me twice Shame on YOU again.
Jack in Wi.| 6.6.11 @ 4:09PM
I like Mr. Antle's analysis. Willard Romney will never get my vote. If I want socialized medicine, abortion uber alles, and gay marriage I may as well vote for Obama. The Bush's, McCain, Dole and Romney call all go to hell. Who needs more liars like them?
Oldmanriver| 6.6.11 @ 5:31PM
The only thing that will fix health care is to outlaw all forms of health and life insurance. Everyone has to pay cash on the barrel head. Prices for everything will come down instantly. The reason we have a problem with health care in this country is because of insurance. There should be no health care benefits at all for anyone. The idea that companies should pay for this is foolish. The idea that you can buy something to limit risk to yourself is crazy. That is what got us into this entire mess. Trying to pawn off our own risk to someone else. We need to have risks that have consequences in order to make rational decisions. Insurance is a legal protection racket and must be outlawed in order for this country to become whole again.
Mimi| 6.6.11 @ 7:03PM
I always said, What would happen if every one, everywhere gave up their health insurance on the same day and at the same hour ?.....The price of DR's and hospitals would instantly COME DOWN ! THINK ABOUT IT.... the least we should do is only have Hospital Insurance ....and pay for visits out of pocket like we all used to do. Back in the 50's and even 60's nobody had even hospital ins. People now in their 70's have strong immune sytems...never ran to the Dr's for everything...very little anti-biotic use in a lifetime. Today people run for a Dr. for stuff that would resolve itself in a few days....because they have insurance!
Oldmanriver| 6.7.11 @ 5:19PM
Exactly, we would no longer have people spending tons and tons of my money trying to live a month or two longer. When the cash would run out people would die as God intended. Thats a big part of our problem, people trying to outwit God and to live a life longer than what was intended or to try to fix some problem that they have from birth when that is not what God intends. He gave us each a set amount of time and when we go against his will it blows up in our faces. This will solve the ills of Social Security too. People would live shorter life spans and we wouldnt be running out of money. Old people clinging to life is just as bad as foolish young people ignoring their own mortality.
Oldefarte| 6.7.11 @ 5:15PM
Good luck with that! Anyone having a heart attack, needing medical attention for same and requiring a six months extended stay in a hospital would no doubt need to be able to write a letitimate personal check for $100000 at least. I admire your wealthy status, and am certainly envious of same!!!!!!!!!!!
Oldmanriver| 6.7.11 @ 7:48PM
The thing is almost no one would be able to afford that so the price would come down to what people could afford.
Thom| 6.6.11 @ 6:29PM
“Romney claims the Massachusetts mandate was necessary to solve the free-rider problem, calling it a matter of "personal responsibility." When uninsured people wind up in the emergency room, he once explained, "someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay."
As “Have you considered” points out it is a government mandate that borders on indentured servitude that created the free rider problem in the first place coupled with government programs like Medicare and Medicaid making health care “free” for the bulk of the people that use (abuse) it the most. How many reading this would work for “free” to meet a government mandate that had you to provide goods or services on demand? For half price? For 40%? What is the price of your hypocrisy?
Everything government subsidizes has run away cost if it has unlimited benefit with no expectation of repayment. Everything. There is no government solution to the high cost of health care that government created in the first place.
Involuntary servitude, indentured servitude or just plan slavery by another name, government mandates that you have to pay for someone else’s unwillingness to pay for something is still blazingly unconstitutional if we are a constitutional republic in more than name. Forget the emotion of the issue for one moment. For such a smart guy I hear, Romney is clearly a dumbass where the founding principles of this republic are concerned. There are no bounds to this if you throw the 13th amendment under the bus here.
I can’t wait till government starts subsidizing buying or giving Lexuses to the “poor”. In effect, that is what it does with all its “free” stuff, be it “free” public schools, food, housing, healthcare and alike. Free stuff has the same effect as printing money with nothing behind it to back that up, it bids up prices or creates inflation, too many dollars chasing too few services. The Health care industry has chronic shortages of both doctors and nurses and throwing 32 million more free loaders into the mix is going to help this? No. It will do the same thing it has done everywhere this has been tried, create rationed care for all rather than those that are the problem in the first place.
Intelligent Design| 6.6.11 @ 6:48PM
Antle says: "State-level mandates do not raise the same constitutional questions as federal mandates." Wrong.
As others have suggested, Romney is just a variation of the socialist Obama. Romney says it's okay for the States to require us to buy a product or else pay or fine, but it's not okay for the federal government. How totally absurd. What's next, it's okay for the States to take away our guns, it's okay for the States to take away our property, it's okay for the States to deprive us of life and liberty?
Mimi| 6.6.11 @ 7:16PM
The fact that Romney thinks like that...Mandate and all it entails and means to me is troublesome . We need a constitutional-conservative for President to begin the slow painful process of turning this country back to it's original intention with greater freedom and liberty. We have many now running and thinking of running who are of that ilk....Why should we settle for anything less. Romney's numbers have to drop and fade, and the sooner the better, He's not our GUY!!!
Occam's Tool| 6.6.11 @ 10:03PM
Might I point out that the primary problem with the "free riders" is to be found with illegal aliens. If in LA County alone--- where 4% of ALL American children are born--- 50 % of them are born to illegal aliens (Source---LA Health department), you've got a problem.
Eliminate the illegals entirely from the health system unless they pay cash, and see what you've got left as a problem. I bet it would be managable---it was in rural Alabama, and it wasn't in LA, and I've worked in both places.
Occam's Tool| 6.6.11 @ 10:05PM
I'm sorry, it's one in 20 US births occurring in LA County.
summer brands | 6.6.11 @ 11:02PM
Since the Obama care about debate got going I am one who called for Romney, here and elsewhere, to simply admit his error as the only way to wipe the slate clean and go forward politically.
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Controse| 6.7.11 @ 1:19PM
Newt terminated his body-politic with a shotgun in the mouth. Romney mutilates his one limb joint amputation at a time. By primary day all he will have left is his talking head. Nothing like talking about situational mandates and global warming threats to fire up the Republican base huh Mitt.
MattZ| 6.9.11 @ 3:24PM
The plain fact is that the Massachusetts health care law has led to better health outcomes, more universal coverage, and better cost controls.
MZ