More on Missouri’s Mandate Meltdown
The Washington Post carries a story this morning analyzing the impact of Proposition C’s overwhelming victory in Missouri on Tuesday, noting that even supporters of the law admitted that “a lack of public support” evidenced by the Missouri result “could make it hard to put the law into practice.” Supporters of the law also argued that “People don’t understand that the mandate is not happening in a vacuum.” This argument is akin to earlier assertions that because individuals like some parts of the law (i.e. the benefits), it will become popular – which is a bit like saying that individuals will support the idea of the federal government giving them a free car, if only you don’t mention to them that their taxes will go up to pay for it (as they will under the health care law).
The Post article also includes comments from health care law supporters stating that the Missouri result was skewed by “a very small percentage of registered voters…very conservative primary races were being decided.” However, as this morning’s Wall Street Journal editorial notes (and as we commented in this space yesterday), the referendum won “with 668,000 votes, yet just 578,000 Republicans cast a ballot in the concurrent primaries,” meaning tens of thousands of Democrats – Democrats who vote in primaries (i.e. the party base) – supported the referendum and opposed the mandate.
On a related note, Jonathan Gruber and the Center for American Progress released a paper today regarding the individual mandate (which, coincidentally, is very similar to a paper on the same subject Gruber and CAP released in April). It alleges that removing the law’s mandate would result in only 6.8 million newly insured individuals, as opposed to the 32.1 million he estimates will obtain coverage under the law.
In other words, a paid Administration advisor has publicly admitted that more than 25 million individuals will obtain health coverage, not because they need it, want it, or find it of particular value – but solely because the federal government is forcing them to buy it, and taxing them if they do not. So it’s worth asking: Why do Democrats insist on moving forward with this intrusive and punitive system imposed by the federal government, even when voters say they don’t want it? And how does forcing 25 million Americans to buy insurance coverage under penalty of taxation classify as “reform?”