Supreme Court strips Romney of favorite argument
So how does Mitt Romney, the architect of RomneyCare, attack ObamaCare from this point forward?
Until now, Romney has claimed that the individual mandate is fine as policy when implemented at the state level. In fact, he has said repeatedly that he believes he did the right thing as governor of Massachusetts.
In a GOP debate in January, for example, Romney defended his plan on its merits, arguing that “everyone has a requirement to either buy it or pay the state for the cost of providing them free care. Because the idea of people getting something for free when they could afford to care for themselves is something that we decided in our state was not a good idea.”
However, while Romney argued that such an approach was right for Massachusetts, he also argued that it would be unconstitutional to implement it at the federal level. That was his get-out-of-jail card; that was the core of the distinction that he attempted to draw between RomneyCare and ObamaCare:
What was good policy at the state level was unconstitutional at the federal level.
Except that as we now know, it’s not. Romney’s argument has been rendered null and void by today’s Supreme Court decision upholding the mandate and the tax penalty used to enforce it.
Romney could, I suppose, try to seize upon the court’s description of the penalty as a tax to try to explain how his plan was different. U.S. Sen. Lindsay Thomas, in an appearance on Fox News this afternoon, was already pitching that line, claiming that “the issue is no longer about health care; it’s about taxes.”
Unfortunately for that line of argument, the tax penalty levied under RomneyCare on those who refuse to buy health insurance differs from that under ObamaCare only by degree, and not in a way friendly to Romney. You see, the maximum tax penalty in RomneyCare, at $1,212, is considerably higher than the maximum of $695 under ObamaCare.
Of course, none of this means that Romney won’t keep attacking the federal plan so clearly modeled after his own strategy. It just means that he won’t be able to do so credibly or logically.
– Jay Bookman
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1,024 comments Add your comment
Brosephus™
June 29th, 2012
8:46 am
dB
I’ve said that I think we’d best be served by a hybrid system where basic clinical care was done via a single payer type system while hospitalization, emergency, elective, and other more advanced stuff was done by insurance coverage through our established system. For high risk coverage, there could be a public option type coverage available that would help keep costs competitive.
GT
June 29th, 2012
8:47 am
MiltonMan a majority gives a president a mandate. Like Bush you can be elected without a majority and not be able to govern until a 9/11 occurs on your watch. Never quit understood how O was responsible for Bush’s economy but Bush was not responsible for 9/11 in that half watt of logic.
But now you are going to rally you gorilla fighter and take over the government with a majority, which hasn’t happen for the right in a long while. And unlike your response to the majority mandate you expect the left to respect the majority elected president and you can conduct business as you and your majority sees fit. Interesting…
stands for decibels
June 29th, 2012
8:47 am
The left cannot win an election without several million fictional characters and dead people casting votes.
Yeah, that FDR, four times… all based on ballot box stuffing.
I’m adding this to my ever-expanding list of Weird Stuff Online Righties Choose to Believe.
Hmmmmmmmm
June 29th, 2012
8:48 am
@Normal
Thanks for the advice… I’m sure you have plenty of Valium… How else could you possibly vote for this guy again….
Here is hoping that people wake up in November…. and get off the Valium…
stands for decibels
June 29th, 2012
8:48 am
whoops. Nobody called SHEETZ so I will, and head upstairs.
Joseph
June 29th, 2012
8:52 am
JamVet:
I’m so glad you presented us with your enormous intellect before we start our day. The infinite wisdom you possess regarding political matters is a thing of such intellectual thinking in which I am no doubt going to vote for Obama now.
Joseph
June 29th, 2012
8:54 am
Rightwing Troll:
Same tired argument… LOL.. You libbies…
Mary Elizabeth
June 29th, 2012
8:56 am
What is sad is that many on the right cannot see how this Affordable Care Act is historical in nature in the same way that Brown vs. Board of Education was historical. It will change America’s history for the better and it will ultimately ensure more freedom for Americans for as FDR had stated in his 4th inaugural address: If there is not (social)security at home, there cannot be freedom in the world.
Here is what I posted yesterday on Kyle Wingfield’s blog, related to this thought, slightly edited:
“About the possibility of a single payer healthcare policy ultimately, I never thought that I would see the end of apartheid in South Africa in my lifetime. But it happened.
History unfolds as consciousness unfolds and the rate of that unfolding is indeterminable. Those who think America’s Founders Fathers would not have approved of today’s Supreme Court decision regarding the Affordable Care Act are not giving our founders enough credit for the depth and complexity of their thinking. Also, the founders did not speak as one voice, but of differing voices who all believed in the one ideal of liberty.
Thomas Jefferson had written, for instance, that the only constant should be the will of the people and that, if in the course of history, emerging Americans were not pleased with the U.S. Constitution, itself, which had served well those of his day and of the immediate days thereafter, then the U.S. Constitution should be viewed as able to be discarded and formed again to serve better the interests and vision of those Americans who, in the evolution of time, were to follow his own generation. Those were the thoughts of a founder who saw the unfolding of history as a process of depth which continuously evolved over time, rather than as a repetitive, static progression, which repeats itself indefinitely.”
Joseph
June 29th, 2012
8:57 am
The left cannot win an election without several million fictional characters and dead people casting votes.
That must be true. Think about it. Georgia has one of the most advanced electronic voter systems in the country and election after election still a bright red state. Its hard to cheat here obviously. On top of that voters must show an ID to vote…
Joseph
June 29th, 2012
8:59 am
Wow Romney raked it in yesterday thanks to CJ Roberts…
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/235551-romney-campaign-reports-42m-raised-off-healthcare-ruling-
MiltonMan
June 29th, 2012
9:01 am
“But now you are going to rally you gorilla fighter and take over the government with a majority, which hasn’t happen for the right in a long while.”
How soon we forget the 2010 elections in which the Dems lost the house. Keep reading you tea leaves and your polls.
Here is one for you right from the pathetic John Barrow who is trying to keep his 12th distrcit seat:
“This health care legislation was flawed from the beginning, which is why I voted against this law in committee and twice on the House floor. For the most part, the Supreme Court has ruled that the law doesn’t violate the Constitution, but that won’t fix the problems the law doesn’t solve, and it won’t fix the problems the law actually makes worse. We have to cut spending and cut health costs, but it starts with rejecting the false choice being offered by both parties, that it’s all or nothing.”
Hmmmmmmmm
June 29th, 2012
9:03 am
@Mary Elizabeth
Yes FDR started this mess, with good intentions…. Creating a country where handouts are a right…. We will hopefully take care of this mess in November… Your naivety is killing this country. I have had enough for the day… Hopefully, Normal has Valium for all…..
MiltonMan
June 29th, 2012
9:04 am
“History unfolds as consciousness unfolds and the rate of that unfolding is indeterminable. Those who think America’s Founders Fathers would not have approved of today’s Supreme Court decision regarding the Affordable Care Act are not giving our founders enough credit…”
and those who think that the founding fathers would have supported this are foolish. The founding fathers supported slavery. Do you actually think they would have supported that today?
MiltonMan
June 29th, 2012
9:06 am
Also, please tell us how this great “social security” plan is working out?
Social Security = a legal ponzi scheme. Plain and simple.
Hmmmmmmmm
June 29th, 2012
9:07 am
@MiltonMan
Good luck with these people…. They are all blinded by the shinning star of their deliverer…
Mary Elizabeth
June 29th, 2012
9:31 am
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm,
If my thinking is naive, then so was/is the thinking of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, the thinking of Edward Kennedy, and the thinking of Barack Obama. What is sad is that you will not enlarge your vision and heart enough to see and to acknowledge the value of the ACA for Americans. And you appear, through your words, not to have the grace of spirit to acknowledge the “strength and moral courage,” as well as the political shrewdness, of President Obama to be able to spearhead this bill into law, when other presidents before him, for over half of a century, had tried to do so and had failed.
TiredOfIt
June 29th, 2012
9:34 am
Talking about ending freebies, lets talk about all that corporate welfare too.
Mary Elizabeth
June 29th, 2012
9:46 am
Milton Man, 9:04 am
“. . .and those who think that the founding fathers would have supported this are foolish. The founding fathers supported slavery. Do you actually think they would have supported that today?”
=====================================
You do not speak truth. The founding fathers of America did not “support slavery.” John Adams, from the industrial Northeast was an advocate against slavery. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both existed within the Southern (VA) agrarian society in which slavery had been a means of economic survival, which they were born into. Washington knew that slavery was wrong and in his will freed his slaves upon his wife’s death. Jefferson’s slaves multiplied over the years to be more in number than were needed on his estate for economic viability for his estate, but he would not sell them to ruthless slave owners nor did he want to break up slave families if he could keep from doing so. Further, Jefferson supported the dismantling of slavery, in time, when the slaves could support themselves within the society in which they existed, and when others would evolve to see the necessity for the dismantling of slavery because slavery went against America’s ideals and basic tenets of which he wrote. Jefferson predicted this end of slavery would fall within 50 years of his prediction, well after his death. His prediction was pretty much spot on. The Civil War occurred 50 years after his prediction, although Jefferson had hoped when he had made that prediction that slavery would end naturally in the course of human evolution and not through battle.
TiredOfIt
June 29th, 2012
10:18 am
Good luck with these people…. They are all blinded by the shinning star of their deliverer…
Romney white shirts are very bright, not sure about start bright, but it is your call.
Tom(Independent-Viet Vet USAF)
June 29th, 2012
10:57 am
Kamchap – Perhaps I got carried away yesterday speaking of fights? You refused to listen to me about what Princess Pelosi said and it riled me. But someone posted the video(hope you saw it) and will acknowledge your 1st mistake in your life? Let’s forget about fights, at least until you get your Obama Care. Everyone makes mistakes, live with it! No, I do not want to fight everyone who disagrees with me but calling me a liar is a different matter! Case closed for time being!!
independent thinker
June 29th, 2012
1:35 pm
””An estimated $1.3 billion will be doled out to individuals and small businesses under a clause in the Affordable Care Act,” according to Business Insider.
The Obamacare rebate checks are part of a provision in the health care law that requires insurance companies to use 80 percent of collected premiums on medical services. If they don’t, they have to send rebates to policyholders for the difference.
In other words, the profits of private insurance companies are limited by Obamacare, which is why Republicans beholden to insurance and drug company lobbyists have generated so much negative spin against the health insurance law.”””””
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/06/29/18716552.php
Yeah lets keep pushing that Repub. talking point that Obamacare raises everyone’s taxes (except the rich of course) while the checks role in around August and September. Kind of like the frat boy president giving free Medicare drugs to the elderly so he could get reelected. Only that one was not funded by any source.
And now gas is below $3.00 a gallon and our dependence on foreign oil keeps going down- Lets see Romney and the Obozo haters blame all that on Obama too.
Campaign strategy 101 in the Rove primer- give the electorate some benefits before the election and they will see through all the BS and vote for the hand that feeds them.
Tom(Independent-Viet Vet USAF)
June 29th, 2012
9:02 pm
independent thinker@1:35 – Affordable Care Act is Obama Care, right. Just like undocumented is the same as illegal. You have such a nice way with words?
Dear GOP: Why We Won’t Listen to You Any More « Political Nutz
July 1st, 2012
10:52 am
[...] any obligation to contribute to their own care. (Supreme Court Strips Romney of Favorite Argument, comments; [...]
Justin
July 2nd, 2012
3:47 pm
Jay,
“You see, the maximum tax penalty in RomneyCare, at $1,212, is considerably higher than the maximum of $695 under ObamaCare.”
Except,, $695 is not the federal cap, so your assertion is false… and clearly shows your bias.
The fine goes up to 2.5% of your income, or the average cost of a health insurance policy. For many, that is far more than $1,212/year.