Coulter Care - Schooling Ann Coulter on the individual mandate

The American Spectator ^ | February 8, 2012 | Peter Ferrara

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Great column and well worth a full read.

Ferrara takes Coulter on while demonstrating Romney's propensity to veer left when he gets into trouble.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

October 11, 2011 - Peter Ferrara

“Newt’s New Contract”

[snip]

[Newt] Gingrich features first in his Contract the priority to “Repeal Obamacare and pass a replacement that saves lives and money by empowering patients and doctors, not bureaucrats and politicians.” Gingrich explains, “The Obamacare law is unconstitutional, unaffordable, unworkable, and stunningly unfair. It’s so-called ‘individual mandate’ is blatantly unconstitutional and an unprecedented expansion of federal power.”

Gingrich displays profound insight into why the individual and employer mandates are so unworkable, writing in the Contract:

Their intractable problem is this: once you have a mandate, the government has to specify exactly what coverage must be included in insurance for it to qualify. This introduces political considerations into determining these minimum standards, guaranteeing that nothing desired by the special interests will be left out. And once the government mandates such expensive insurance, the government becomes responsible for its costs. It has to adopt expensive subsidies to help people pay for the expensive plans that it is requiring. The resulting cost to the taxpayer and strain on the budget leads the government to try and control healthcare costs by limiting healthcare services. The inevitable result is rationing by a nameless, faceless, unaccountable board of government bureaucrats.

These intractable problems arise whether the mandates are imposed by the federal government or a state government. In fact, exactly these disastrous results are playing out under Romneycare in Massachusetts.

Repeal of Obamacare cuts future spending and taxes by trillions. It also would result in further dramatic reductions in regulatory burdens and costs. As Gingrich’s Contract notes, “The Obamacare law also creates one thousand, nine hundred and sixty eight separate grants of power to bureaucrats, most of them to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and her bureaucracy. It creates 159 new boards, agencies and other government entities to administer health decisions that should be up to the individual in consultation with their doctor.”

Gingrich also displays original insight into the policies that should replace Obamacare:

I will advocate for specific replacement health policies that will create a free market framework for health care, provide affordable, portable, and reliable healthcare coverage, and establish a health care safety net focused on those in need. This system will assure health care for all with no individual mandate or employer mandate of any kind. This alternative to Obamacare begins with patient power and localism and the many common sense ideas developed over the past eight years at the Center for Health Transformation.

These policies adopt the Patient Power framework advocated by conservative health policy guru John Goodman at NCPA in Dallas. That is why Gingrich’s reforms include extending

Health Savings Accounts throughout the entire health care system. Everyone on Medicare should be free to choose an HSA as part of their coverage if they want it. Everyone on Medicaid should be free to choose an HSA for part of his or her coverage. All workers should be free to use their health insurance tax credit or deduction to choose an HSA in place of their employer-provided health insurance if they desire.

The very first paper on Health Savings Accounts, in fact, was co-authored by John Goodman and myself in 1981. Gingrich was a leader in Congress providing for the initial adoption of HSAs in federal law. [snip]

http://townhall.com/columnists/peterferrara/2011/10/11/newt%E2%80%99s_new_contract/page/full/

[Rudder]

Impeach Ann Coulter.

[Mr. K]

"...and grossly undermining the policy and political case against Obamacare..."

that's the money shot right there, Ann. You helped Obamacare with your column defending Romneycare.

[Vaquero]

et tu Ann

we hardly knew ye.

sad really

[Diogenesis]

"I bet you $10,000 that my lovesick and bought
maid, here, absolutely supports my mandated RomneyCARE AND deathpanels,
and especially the fact that Romneycare cost the Bay State 18,313 jobs;
drove up total health insurance costs in Massachusetts by $4.311 billion;
collapsed disposable income per person by $376; and
even reduced investment in Massachusetts by $25.06 million.
My robotic tart-twit even supports my coverup of the BIG DIG
AND my backstabbing of GOP candidates through surrogates,
(heck, the wench even jumps right in to attack them … for me!!!!).
She especially LOVES my personal imposition of gay marriage by
my personal order under improper Executive Authority,
my support of TARP, and Sharia and other antiConstitutional agendae,
and my bribing of Officials with a promise of future positions.
She loves my Team’s abuse of women GOP candidates … and their helpless children,
and even my making money from the 911 Victory Mosque.
These are truly things, like our abuse of dogs,
that make this mindless vessel and me what
we are calling .... 'conservative'."

[ncalburt]

Ann committed career suicide!
She will disappear after this election cycle .

[PGalt]

1, 2, 6...BUMP, BUMP, BUMP!

Hillarycare-Romneycare-Obamacare-TOTALITARIANCARE.

[steelyourfaith]

Excellent. Thanx for posting.

[Helotes]

Doesn’t it make sense that the Obamacare rule that Catholic hospitals must provide contraceptive services is a logical, direct extension of the philosophy of the Individual Mandate?

Is they can make you purchase health insurance there’s no limit to what they can make you do. This is just the beginning....

[bray]

Hope Ann Cultist refilled her Prozac prescription.

Pray for America

[Stosh]

Absolutely correct - Ferrara takes Ann to school on this one, and really exposes Romney in the conclusion to the piece. A very thoughtful and insightful article, and also one that’s easy to read.

I’ve always respected and admired AC, but with her behavior over the last few months, she’s starting to look like a candidate for an exorcism. Hopefully if the electorate in the remaining primaries succeeds in dumping Romney, that will be enough to bring her back to her senses.

[sauropod]

Inevitably, Romney will pull the Republican Party to the left and crack up the Reagan coalition which has dominated the party since 1980.

A minor quibble. The "Reagan coalition" has been dead for some time now.

That's how we ended up with bobdole and McQueeg as presidential candidates.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Doesn’t it make sense that the Obamacare rule that Catholic hospitals must provide contraceptive services is a logical, direct extension of the philosophy of the Individual Mandate?

It's worse than that. It's the right of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (or any sec of HHS) to dictate guidelines (this was one of them) -- power provided to her by ObamaCare.

Is they can make you purchase health insurance there’s no limit to what they can make you do. This is just the beginning....

Indeed it is.

[txrangerette]

Yes, and there is also a mandate on the health insurers...they must offer policies under the direction of HHS. They are told all the particulars of what they must offer.

I would like to know what power the constitution gives them to mandate what private businesses offer their customers, just as well as wanting to know what power they claim to mandate customer purchases.

If this is supposedly under the Interstate Commerce Clause, then our country was founded on something the Founders knew not, even though they did the founding.

I have a word for what is being done in the name of Obamacare:

FASCISM.

[Seattle Conservative]

was checking the CPAC schedule the other day. I’m wondering if some, especially FReepers, won’t bother to attend any events in which Ann participates. Here are the events I found in which Ann will be participating:

Thurs - 11 a.m.: Fire From the Heartland: The Awakening of the Conservative Woman – CPAC Theater
Starring: The Honorable Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Ann Coulter, and an all-star cast.
Live introduction by Director Stephen Bannon and cast member Sonnie Johnson

Fri - 11:50 a.m.: Ann Coulter, Best-Selling Author, Legal Correspondent for Human Events – Marriott Ballroom

Fri - 12:30: Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America – Conservative Book Nook
Book signing with Author Ann Coulter
Open to all CPAC attendees in Exhibit Hall B

Romney’s speech is Fri at 12:55 - looks like Ann may be signing books and miss the Mittster’s speach.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

[BigSkyFreeper]

Coulter won’t get educated as long as she lacks the propensity to keep her mouth shut and learn.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

July 18, 2011: Gov. Rick Perry signs health care reform bill into law; Texas fourth state to pass health care compacts bill

"With the signature of Gov. Rick Perry today, Texas has joined three other states stating their intention to enter into a health care compact.

The compact, which would challenge the authority of the federal government to dictate the terms of the federally and state funded Medicaid program, was part of a wide-ranging health care reform bill, Senate Bill 7, passed by the Texas Legislature in its recently concluded special session.

Georgia, Oklahoma and Missouri have already signed onto the compacts movement, with Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon signing a bill into law on Thursday.

The law establishes Texas, along with the other three states, as pioneers in an uncharted use of Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution which allows states to enter into agreements that, with the approval of Congress, cannot be abridged by the federal government. There are more than 200 state compacts currently in effect, nearly all of them related to commerce.”…..

__________

August 8, 2011: Kansas returns health insurance exchange grant WASHINGTON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Kansas became on Tuesday the second U.S. state to return a large federal grant meant to help it create a prototype health insurance exchange as part of the Obama administration's healthcare overhaul.

Republican Governor Sam Brownback said the state would give back the $31.5 million it received from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to become an early leader, along with six other states, in establishing health insurance exchanges that other local government could use as a model.

Exchanges are meant to provide an open marketplace of competing insurance plans that allow uninsured people and small businesses to band together to negotiate cheaper rates.

Kansas's move brings the total amount of the returned exchange-related federal grants to almost $90 million as Republican governors seek to block implementation of the healthcare law supported largely by Democratic lawmakers.

Experts warn that many states are falling far behind schedule for a smooth and timely roll-out of the reform.

States are facing a deadline of Jan. 1, 2013, to submit detailed plans for their exchanges or see HHS come in and build one itself. Returning grants increases the likelihood that HHS would have to do the work.

"It could come around to hurt the state in the long run," said Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at the nonpartisan Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University.

"The more states that say: 'Forget it, let's have the Feds run it,' the more likely the (federal government) is going to have a one-size-fits-all solution. They're not going to be able to customize it for 30 states."

In April, Oklahoma returned its $54.6 million early innovator grant, the largest of the batch of seven issued in total. Kansas followed suit on Tuesday after months of internal wrangling between Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger and the conservative governor and legislature.

"Every state should be preparing for fewer federal resources, not more," Governor Brownback said in a statement. "To deal with that reality, Kansas needs to maintain maximum flexibility. That requires freeing Kansas from the strings attached to the Early Innovator Grant."…………….

_________________

MEANWHILE MITT ROMNEY is pushing these health care exchanges

July 16, 2011: Romney Adviser Backs Obama Health Exchanges

SALT LAKE CITY — Former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, a top supporter and adviser of Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney, strenuously backed the core piece of President Barack Obama’s health-care law and urged the states to move forward together in adopting health insurance exchanges.

Speaking to a bipartisan group of governors at the National Governors Association, the former Republican governor who served as secretary of health and human services in the Bush administration, called the exchanges where individuals and small businesses can purchase health plans “a very practical solution to a problem that needs to be solved.” He warned governors who are reluctant to move forward with their state-level exchanges that their intransigence will only empower federal regulators.

And he said the health care law that passed is a compromise that gives the states the flexibility they need.

“This is a profoundly important time for the states,” said Mr. Leavitt. “States need to lead.”

The comments came at a time when every major Republican presidential candidate has pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the president’s health care law. For former Massachusetts Gov. Romney, the issue is extra sensitive: the health care plan he secured for Massachusetts included an exchange almost identical to the federal law. He has tried to tightrope through the issue, blasting the federal law as he defends his own.

The federal law gives the states until January 2014 to set up their own exchanges, with federal oversight. If they fail to do so, their citizens will get access to a federal exchange.

But some Republican governors have been reluctant. They oppose the federal law and say they hope it will be repealed by a Republican president in 2013.

[Helotes]

It makes me want to cry to see this tyranny brought upon us