Posted on 02/19/2016 9:08:21 AM PST by SeekAndFind
If Cruz and Rubio are looking for some eleventh-hour ad material to galvanize righties before tomorrow’s big vote, they can’t do better than this.
Somehow, after six years of conservative agitation against the mandate and a 5-4 Supreme Court majority finding it unconstitutional as an exercise of Congress’s commerce (but not taxi!) power, it seems likely we’re going to end up with two consecutive Republican presidential nominees who are pro-mandate.
Romney at least wanted to leave the mandate-making to the states; Trump, an authoritarian with no apparent philosophical interest in federalism, probably won’t be as deferential. The silver lining, though, in nominating Trump as his affronts to conservative orthodoxy pile up (“Bush lied!”) is that we’ll get to finally see in the general election just what sort of real electoral muscle the conservative movement has. In theory, if the GOP electorate is as conservative as people claim, Trump saying something like this should detonate his potential support among a solid third of the party. No major-party nominee can win a general election after bleeding that much support on his own side.
In practice, I’d be very, very surprised if the numbers of Republicans staying home in a Trump/Hillary race greatly exceeded the numbers who stayed home for Romney or McCain. It’d be a different group that failed to show this year than failed to show in previous cycles, but in terms of raw numbers? Partisan tribalism will deliver most Republicans to Trump no matter how many supposed “core” beliefs he tramples on. That’s why, whatever Trump’s critics might tell you right now, he really does stand a decent chance of beating Hillary.
The bit about the mandate isn’t even the most interesting part. That distinction goes to Trump suggesting, repeatedly, that the only alternative is letting people die in the streets. I’m tempted to call that Obama-esque — “my opponents are not just wrong but morally depraved” — but O tends to reserve that form of argument for foreign policy and gun-control lectures. The guy on the left whom Trump sounds like here is actually Alan Grayson, the most notorious progressive troll in Congress, who stood up on the House floor in 2009 and said, “If you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly.” Trump couldn’t have said it better himself. We’re maybe 10 days away from making this guy the prohibitive favorite for the Republican nomination.
Dunno. You'd have to ask "The Donald" that question. I'm a Cruzer.
A gotcha question is asked to get a candidate to answer a question that doesn’t have an easy answer because whatever you say will irritate one bunch of supporters while pleasing another. Ethanol is a prime example of a gotcha question topic.
This was not a gotcha question. Trump was asked about the individual mandate and said he liked it. He said that even though it should irritate every conservative supporter he has, because it’s what he believes.
He knows his conservative supporters very well...
>>...or he’s completely insane.<<
Bingo!! We have a winner over here, folks!
Exactly. Unless of course the government mandates that you have insurance. Maybe Trump can explain how his proposal is going to work.
The requirement that insurers cover pre-existing conditions is the flip-side of the individual mandate, and is the very reason the mandate exists in Obamacare. Taking on people with pre-existing conditions is a HUGE cost for insurers. In order to get them to sign on to Obmacare, the Dems struck a deal: the insurance companies agreed to cover people with pre-existing conditions, and in exchange, the Dems agreed to provide them with a massive pool of young, healthy customers via the individual mandate. The two requirements are heavily intertwined. If you were to repeal the individual mandate, but not the pre-existing condition requirement, you would destroy the insurance market.
It’s why Obamacare must be repealed in full, not piece-by-piece. It’s a disastrous house of cards - try to tinker with just one piece, and it will bring down the whole thing.
The question was actually pretty simple (and, contrary to what others have suggested, was not a "gotcha" question). It was based on the fact that Obamacare's requirement that insurers cover people with pre-existing conditions is inexorably linked with the individual mandate. If the law required insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions, but did not include the mandate, there would be no reason for anyone to purchase insurance--people could just pay for day-to-day health expenses as they go, and wait until they got sick and needed coverage before buying insurance.
Cooper was asking Trump why insurance companies would agree to cover people with pre-existing conditions, absent a mandate for people to purchase insurance. Trump responded by saying that he liked the mandate.
This whole issue is a perfect example of why Obamacare needs to go, period, full stop. None of this picking-and-choosing nonsense--everything is too closely interrelated--the whole thing, every word, needs to go.
Type into a search: homeless man dies on street
And the sky is blue. What’s your point? He is suggesting that people die in the streets because they can’t get care and that is ridiculous. The democrats say that garbage every election year.
It’s actually quite humorous that is sincerely what you think.
@realDonaldTrump: I was asked about healthcare by Anderson Cooper & have been consistent- I will repeal all of #ObamaCare, including the mandate, period.
@realDonaldTrump: I was referring to a backstop for pre-existing conditions. I will eliminate the law, in its entirety, & replace it w/ something much better.
I think you responded to the wrong poster. I was quoting what a poster wrote to me. I do NOT think trump is the best we have. Not at all.
I saw the who.e damn town hall, that is exactly what he was saying that hospitals would have to be mandated to take care of pre existing conditions and the very I’ll that cannot take care of themselves!! The way it WAS before was medical took care of these folks and it seemed to work fine!!! His statement we can’t let people die but that with competition insurance will be FAR LESS expensive for EVERYONE!!!! the Cruz people posting this crap are just like Cruz lying through their teeth!!!!
TRUMP NEVER SAID I like the OBAMA care MANDATE you are a LIAR just like your candidate!!!!
Read the Transcript, it is quite clear.
I tried it and it works! Thanks!
Trump is a big-government statist just like Romney, McCain, Bush, and Dole.
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