JONATHAN CHAIT MAY 11, 2011
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Tomorrow Mitt Romney ventures straight into the lion's den -- Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of Jonathan Cohn, where he will deliver a health care speech attempting to explain the unexplainable. Just as Luke Skywalker was bound to seek out and confront Darth Vader, Romney must confront Cohn. If Romney winds up bloodied, one hand sliced off and clinging to a weathervane with the other, he'll have done better than I expect.
Romney's "Address To Jonathan Cohn And Fellow Ann Arborites"* will no doubt emphasize his federalist position. At the state level, the individual mandate is a humane, cost-effective tool for rationalizing the health care market. At the federal level, it is the greatest threat to freedom in American history. That is Romney's stance.
Unfortunately, some evidence is emerging that this was not Romney's stance before. Bluemassgroup has dug up this 1994 article in TNR, in which Romney told our John Judis that he would support a national health care plan that included an individual mandate:
The question about Romney is where he would stand in Congress's internecine battles. Would he side with Republicans such as John Chafee who have tried to develop constructive alternatives to Democratic legislation or with Republicans such as Phil Gramm and Newt Gingrich who have been willing to paralyze Congress for the sake of embarrassing the Clinton administration? Romney has indicated that he would side with the moderate wing. He endorsed the crime bill and refused to back Gingrich's jejune "Contract with America." He told me he would have backed Chafee's health care bill. "I'm willing to vote for things that I am not wild with," he said.
Romney's spokesman tells National Review, “Governor Romney has made it very clear over the last many years, including during the 2008 presidential cycle, that he opposes a federally imposed individual mandate.” Which is to say, Romney abandoned that view even before 2008. However, Greg Sargent points to a 2007 Meet the Press interview in which Romney said that he would like to see an individual mandate spread to every state:
ROMNEY: I’m a federalist. I don’t believe in applying what works in one state to all states if different states have different circumstances...Now, I happen to like what we did. I think it’s a good model for other states. Maybe not every state but most, and so what I’d do at the federal level is give every state the same kind of flexibility we got from the federal government as well as some carrots and sticks to actually get all their citizens insured. And I think a lot of states will choose what we did. I wouldn’t tell them they have to do our plan...
MR. RUSSERT: So if a state chose a mandate, it wouldn’t bother you?
MR. ROMNEY: I’d think it’s a terrific idea. I think you’re going to find when it’s all said and done, after all these states that are the laboratories of democracy, get their chance to try their own plans, but those who follow the path that we pursued will find it’s the best path, and we’ll end up with a nation that’s taken a mandate approach.
In conclusion: If we lived in a country where every citizen was required by the national government to obtain health insurance, it would be tyranny. But if we lived in a country where every citizen was required by their state government to obtain health insurance, it would be ideal. Anybody think this is going to fly?
*This may not be the official name of the event
17 comments
Is the Romney death watch anything like the Tressel death watch?
- rayward
May 11, 2011 at 3:21pm
That's it. Mitt R. is finished. He contradicted himself. Wait a minute, if this were the case, that would annul about every election in the last century.
- liberalref
May 11, 2011 at 3:32pm
Mitt made me buy health insurance (I live in Massachusetts). It makes no difference to me whether this is a state mandate or a federal mandate; if one is tyranny then so is the other. Either way, I have been FORCED to purchase health insurance (which I happen to like, by the way).
- wkwami
May 11, 2011 at 4:06pm
Are you saying Cohn is Romney's father? He looks very young for that but then again space time in TNRland is a peculiar thing, I still expect to see Williamyard or Teplukhin on these pages...
- IggyPop
May 11, 2011 at 4:27pm
It's a strange form of tyranny. People who have health insurance, and are in most cases extremely glad they have it, are protesting that it's tyrannical to force others to buy it, even though most of the people being "forced" to buy it would very much like to have it, but today can't get it because of pre-existing conditions or lack of financial wherewithal. "Sure, I love my health insurance. I never have to worry about being bankrupted by disease, and I can seek medical care any time I think I need it. But, I love the freedom not to purchase insurance more than I love the insurance itself, so, in my boundless magnanimity and deep grace, I will work tirelessly to assure that no one else is deprived of this precious freedom, even if it means depriving them of health insurance. If only they knew what was good for them, they'd thank me." Of course, these same folks thought that depriving employers and merchants of freedom to discriminate against black folks was worse than the institutionalized racism that deprived blacks of the "lesser" freedom of being able to work, eat, shop and sleep anywhere they pleased, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised at their callousness.
- Geoff G
May 11, 2011 at 4:30pm
Romney does have some conservative dogma behind him. Milton Friedman said "How can we benefit from the promise of government while avoiding the threat to freedom? Two broad principles embodied in our Constitution give an answer... First, the scope of government must be limited... The second broad principle is that government power must be dispersed. If government is to exercise power, better in the county than in the state, better in the state than in Washington... If I do not like what my state does, I can move to another. If I do not like what Washington imposes, I have few alternatives in this world of jealous nations..." So there is a BIG difference between a mandate from the state and a mandate from the feds. If you don't like the state mandate, you can move to Louisiana or Texas to get away from it. If you don't like the federal mandate, you have no choice but to be enslaved by the feds (what's your other option? Canada???) It might be a little nuanced for tea party-types, but it's not beyond the conservative pale ideologically. And the tea party sweetheart, Paul Ryan, has already proposed an individual mandate for medicare that almost every Republican in the House (many of them tea partiers) voted for. Romney can just insist that the way Obama did the individual mandate was bad, and the way he did it (and the way Ryan did it) was good, and then call Obama a socialist and say that the real danger is that Obama wants to redistribute from the rich to the poor and destroy American exceptionalism and free enterprise and blah blah blah, and say that government never creates jobs but he, Romney, is from the private sector so he knows how to create jobs (first thing - cut taxes, second thing - break the unions, etc.), and blah blah blah, and I'll bet a lot of Republicans will go for it. What other option do they have? If there was someone better, they'd vote for the someone better, but there's no one better.
- tysonsahib
May 11, 2011 at 4:34pm
I think many of these people really feel like the "tyranny" is in the federal government forcing them to subsidize others' health insurance purchases. Taxation is theft etc. Although they would never admit that--sounds too selfish. Sounds far better to say that the problem is the mean ole' government rather than the undeserving poor.
- huntmark
May 11, 2011 at 4:38pm
I still say Romney can survive. Mostly because his opposition in the GOP primary is just so darn AWFUL... Secondly, Jonathan you may be over-estimating the logical consistency of the GOP base. If there is one thing that is breathtaking it is the ability of the GOP to turn on a dime. That has been one of its great electoral assets. Witness Coryn talking about Ryan's plan being like Obamacare. I think the ridiculous horsecrap about states' rights just might be sellable to the (ahem) Constitutional scholars in the TP.
- MikeB.
May 11, 2011 at 5:13pm
MikeB is making a lot of sense. And I like how he has the word "horsecrap" and "TP" in the same sentence. Conjures up an interesting visual image...
- tysonsahib
May 11, 2011 at 5:19pm
A disturbingly large percentage of the base of the Republican party believes that the earth is somehere around 6000 years old and a visit to the Creation Museum in Kentucky is educational. Maybe Mitt can convince them that his position makes sense, since it makes more sense than a lot of the other stuff they believe.
- Clareita
May 11, 2011 at 6:14pm
tysonahib Maybe I am wrong, but I think Chait's point is that the Republican party's attack on Obamacare makes the party a hostile environment for Mitt Romney. The Republican attack does not distinguish between State or Federal authority on the issue and, although that is Romney's distinction, Chait is indicating, not really based on past facts.
- Nusholtz
May 11, 2011 at 7:02pm
Hey, Mormons are Christians while we are believing impossible things. (I am not a Christian, not a Mormon, and if I mention my ethnic background at TNR people get too excited). So be offended....be very offended.
- skahn
May 11, 2011 at 7:28pm
On a slightly different tack, does anyone here endorse my feeling that John Huntsman's bid for the GOP nomination will fizzle and die the moment someone publicly asks this question? Moderator: "Why did you accept the ambassadorship to China?" Huntsman: "Well, President Obama offered it to me, I was honored that he thought I was the right person for this important post, and so I felt obligated to take it on."
- ironyroad
May 11, 2011 at 7:30pm
No no no irony. By the way it is Jon (not John) Huntsman. Surely JH will be defter than that. He will answer your hypothetical question by saying "It was a good career move."
- liberalref
May 11, 2011 at 8:57pm
Ah yes, true, my bad. But will even that gesture toward pragmatism allow him to squirm out from under the shadow of being "an Obama appointee"?
- ironyroad
May 11, 2011 at 9:20pm
If this can be adequately publicized to GOP primary voters , it could knock him out of the race. He has changed course on many issues . I have a feeling that his Mormon religion could be a detriment as well . He has to know that we can't get a handle on the problems of our health care system without a mandate for universal coverage. State mandates won't get it done. There are far too many states that won't join in . If we can knock Romney out I think it greatly increases our chances to re elect Obama. This is a weak GOP field . He is one of the more plausible candidates.
- alanwilkov
May 11, 2011 at 10:38pm
Iggy: Romney's father did rise to political prominence in ... Michigan! Coincidence?
- frippo
May 12, 2011 at 12:31pm