Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
To the good people of Ricochet who support Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination, please look at this as an opportunity. There simply has to be a better defense of Romney and/or Romneycare than the one being provided by his supporters Ann Coulter and David Frum. I was alerted to the situation by this Frum tweet:
@davidfrum Bravo for Ann Coulter for championing universal private health coverage w subsidies for those who need them. http://bit.ly/yX0TFC
Now, at this point in his career, I'd be surprised if Frum didn't champion what proponents call "universal private health coverage" and what the rest of us call a gross invasion of personal liberty. But if I know one thing, it's that Ann Coulter would never in a million years do the same, right?
In what is either high performance art or clear evidence that there's been some kind of body-snatching, Coulter defends Romneycare on the oddest grounds ever. She accuses conservatives of equating the Massachusetts plan to the federal plan solely because they have similar nicknames and cover the same general topic area. As Philip Klein writes at The Washington Examiner:
This is a shameful argument, and she must have a very low opinion of conservatives if she thinks this is actually true. In reality, people don’t compare Romneycare and Obamacare because their nicknames share the same basic structure, but because the laws have the same basic structure. Specifically, both laws expand Medicaid, force individuals to purchase government-approved insurance or pay a fine, and provide subsidies for individuals to purchase government-designed "private" insurance policies on government-run exchanges.
She points out that some conservatives supported Romneycare at the time. She doesn't mention the many conservatives who opposed it at the time. Then she argues that Romneycare is constitutional, an argument against what exactly? Are conservatives claiming that it's not? Hardly. As Klein asks, do conservatives oppose massive tax increases because they're unconstitutional? No.
Finally, she argues that all the problems of Romneycare are due to Massachusetts Democrats. There are a few problems with the argument. Namely, Romney signed the law (while seated underneath the smiling gaze of Ted Kennedy) knowing that Democrats had enough votes to override Romney's line-item vetoes. He signed it after he'd announced he wasn't running again. As Klein writes, "Part of being a limited government Republican is realizing that once you put the infrastructure in place, successors can always add to it."
If Coulter has decided that Romney is the best of the Republican options and she can’t stand Newt Gingrich, that’s fine. If she wants to argue that conservatives should trust Romney’s commitment to repealing Obamacare, okay. But she shouldn’t defend big government social welfare policy as conservative and treat conservatives like they're too dumb to understand the difference.
It's hard for people to hold competing thoughts in their head at the same time. This is precisely my worry -- that supporting Romney will lead people where Ann Coulter inexplicably has arrived -- to a full-throated defense of Romneycare.
So I ask the wonderful Romney supporters here -- help out those of us who are terrified. Is this what you have to do if you sign on to support Romney? Allay our fears! Show us a better way.
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Comments:
May '10
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.: ... In what is either high performance art or clear evidence that there's been some kind of body-snatching, Coulter defends Romneycare on the oddest grounds ever.
...It's hard for people to hold competing thoughts in their head at the same time. This is precisely my worry -- that supporting Romney will lead people where Ann Coulter inexplicably has arrived -- to a full-throated defense of Romneycare.
Even the title of her piece, "Three Cheers for Romneycare!," gives away what she has become: not much more than a cheerleader for Romney.
I wonder how she felt inside as she wrote it: whether there was any twinge of guilt or internal conflict, any sense that she was belittling herself or selling out intellectually, any inkling that she would be undermining her own credibility, any internal voice that told her, "This is a weak argument-- I shouldn't be making it."
If not, she's completely lost all sense of balance, truth, and intellectual honesty.
Jul '11
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Guruforhire
Yes I can in fact complain about Obama, just I will be able to complain about Romney. A pox on both houses is not an implicit or explicit endorsement of either. · 35 minutes ago
I dislike RINOs and business as usual GOP crooks. Romney will be no worse than Bush 1 or 2, in fact he will be better due to oversight. I despise Obama with every mitochondria in my cells. There is a difference.
Jul '11
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Duane Oyen: My concern is that we can't simply ignore the problem of access to health care- why? Because the Federal government is already in there (long before ObamaCare), and the alternatives get worse and worse.
If a legislature votes 154-2 and 37-0 for a program, the governor can't block it. He needs to instead shape it- asking Heritage and Pauly for advice was the recognized best approach, as opposed to letting it the lefties do it their way. But you can't explain reality on the stump in two soundbites when Gingrich is there yowling.
Les Aspin made a speech on the House floor in the 1980's decrying Democrats as the "Dr. No's of Defense". We need to not to be the "Dr. No's" of absolutely everything. If the political market demands that health care be addressed, and our response is "nonononononono", we aren't accomplishing a whole lot.
David Frum was wrong in saying that we should have made a deal on ObamaCare. He was right that we should have addressed the problem- to prevent worse alternatves. · 7 minutes ago
Spot on.
Oct '10
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Romney has been in the race for longer than anyone, and continues to be the front runner. There aren't any posts inviting criticism of Pawlenty's or Bachmann's or Perry's or Cain's or Huntsman's positions because, well, who cares any more. The guy might be President - scrutiny should be expected!
For every criticism about Ricochet being a cabal of anti-Romneyism there is one about Ricochet being a tool of the anti-Gingrich establishment. (And for every ten of these there is a complaint about the sinister silence on Paul.) I don't think this necessarily says anything good about Ricochet, by the way, except that doesn't seem to be anyone's lapdog.
"Right of center", actually.
Aug '11
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
DocJay
I dislike RINOs and business as usual GOP crooks. Romney will be no worse than Bush 1 or 2, in fact he will be better due to oversight.
Oversight from . . . ???
May '10
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
If that's the case, then Romney should present it as such. He doesn't. He says it's a good system, not just the best possible compromise under threat of a worse law.
Apr '11
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Douglas posted about the Coulter column in the Member Feed last night.
May '10
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Chris Deleon...............
The fact that you don't get how wrong and frightening the whole concept of mandated care is, shows you aren't taking the rest of us seriously.
.................
Perhaps we don't have a great alternative to Romney. (Santorum is actually a pretty good alternative, by the way! .................
Santorum is indeed the best option for the very conservative, even his history of voting for spending is better than Newt's mercurial nature. But you can't give Santorum a pass on his big government history in favor of his current proposals unless you also accept Romney's unequivocal blunt promise to kill ObamaCare. That is, unless you are frankly ABR, period, for no rational reason.
But, like it or not, the virulent opposition to coverage- not care- mandates is not a new controversy. I realize that many of the people in this article are considered RINO- but we still have to fix the problem. And I am not convinced that Tom Miller's solution is any better or real than those he decries.
What I am not "taking seriously" is an assertion that we can govern if we simply ignore health care problems, saying "HE22 NO!" to everything.
May '10
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Sorry, this is nonsense. Sometimes you have to stand on principle, even if the "political market" is not favorable to you, or appears to be "demanding" a particular solution (usually it's just the liberal media demanding it).
It does help to have an alternative, not just say "No." But the alternative is not just giving in halfway.
In the case of health care, the solution is more freedom, more market forces, less bureaucracy and less encumbering regulation. HSAs are one of the best things to happen to the healthcare market, for consumers, in the last few decades. They put consumers back in control, selecting health providers and responsible more directly for the cost, without so many middle-men and price-hiding mechanisms. For catastrophic needs, the coupled high-deductible insurance plan kicks in. Insurance once again becomes what it should have been all along-- protection against unforeseen large expenditures.
Edited on February 2, 2012 at 6:43pmMay '10
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Aaron Miller
If that's the case, then Romney should present it as such. He doesn't. He says it's a good system, not just the best possible compromise under threat of a worse law. · 1 minute ago
You do realize that that is a practical political impossibility, don't you, Aaron? Every blithe statement to that effect that I have read here has struck me as grossly naive. Yuval Levin's article makes a lot more sense. EMTALA was not signed by Reagan because of coercion, it reflected the national sensibility, and there are many court cases (some racially motivated in the South) that led to a near consensus.
May '10
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Here's a thought. How about we tax people less so that they can give more to charities? Charities have always focused on individuals who fall through the cracks.
How difficult is it, really, for a politician to tell the stories of various charities which serve people who need flu shots or kids dying of cancer and point out that every dollar going to bureaucrats in DC is not going to the people who provide face-to-face, individualized care for the sick and the poor?
Yes, our government is already in the healthcare business, so we must strive to change the expectations of citizens about the role of government. Republicans aren't failing to change expectations — they're not even trying.
Jul '11
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
DrewInWisconsin
DocJay
I dislike RINOs and business as usual GOP crooks. Romney will be no worse than Bush 1 or 2, in fact he will be better due to oversight.
Oversight from . . . ??? · 8 minutes ago
For one, we will put up Ryan or Rubio in 2016 if Mitt does not behave. Prior to that, hopefully a solid TP increase in senate/house. I know it's weak but how else can I justify it. Obama has to go. I cannot live with myself if I do not vote against him.
May '10
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Chris Deleon
Sorry, this is nonsense. Sometimes you have to stand on principle, even if the "political market" is not favorable to you, or appears to be "demanding" a particular solution (usually it's just the liberal media demanding it).
It does help to have an alternative, not just say "No." But the alternative is not just giving in halfway.
In the case of health care, the solution is more freedom, more market forces, less bureaucracy and less encumbering regulation. HSAs are one of the best things to happen to the healthcare market, for consumers, in the last few decades. .........
I'm all for HSA's- and thanks to George W. Bush who made it happen. But, respectfully, most of these comments are politically nonsensical at this point in time.
But, if you seriously believe, Chris, that the national issue of health care is just the keening of liberal media, there are no words that would bring this back to reality. Every conservative approach was blocked by Teddy- and aided by NAIC, hospitals and BC/BS.
We can fight that- but first we have to sign on to solve the problem, not just react to lefty proposals by yelling "no".
Dec '10
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
"It's hard for people to hold competing thoughts in their head at the same time." Point of information: it is supremely easy for people to hold competing thoughts in their head at the same time. In fact, I would argue that the ability to accommodate cognitive dissonance is a hallmark of human cognition. And Ann Coulter is demonstrating it: she simultaneously believes that she is a hard line conservative and that Romney is the best conservative candidate. Her full-throated defense of RomneyCare isn't an effort to square the ideas "I like Romney" and "I hate RomneyCare": it's an effort to square "I can only support a True Conservative" and "I support Romney."
Sep '10
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Agreed.
DocJay
Duane Oyen: My concern is that we can't simply ignore the problem of access to health care- why? Because the Federal government is already in there (long before ObamaCare), and the alternatives get worse and worse.
If a legislature votes 154-2 and 37-0 for a program, the governor can't block it. He needs to instead shape it- asking Heritage and Pauly for advice was the recognized best approach, as opposed to letting it the lefties do it their way. But you can't explain reality on the stump in two soundbites when Gingrich is there yowling.
Les Aspin made a speech on the House floor in the 1980's decrying Democrats as the "Dr. No's of Defense". We need to not to be the "Dr. No's" of absolutely everything. If the political market demands that health care be addressed, and our response is "nonononononono", we aren't accomplishing a whole lot.
David Frum was wrong in saying that we should have made a deal on ObamaCare. He was right that we should have addressed the problem- to prevent worse alternatves. · 7 minutes ago
Spot on. · 19 minutes ago
May '10
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Duane Oyen
We can fight that- but first we have to sign on to solve the problem, not just react to lefty proposals by yelling "no". · 1 minute ago
What this leads to, if you don't fight for conservative solutions, is the steady, slow(er) march to socialism.
This is exactly the problem with Romney.
Sep '10
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Government should get out of the charity business. Problem is, you can't call it charity; polite company requires the more collectively apt social services.
Aaron Miller
Here's a thought. How about we tax people less so that they can give more to charities? Charities have always focused on individuals who fall through the cracks.
How difficult is it, really, for a politician to tell the stories of various charities which serve people who need flu shots or kids dying of cancer and point out that every dollar going to bureaucrats in DC is not going to the people who provide face-to-face, individualized care for the sick and the poor?
Yes, our government is already in the healthcare business, so we must strive to change the expectations of citizens about the role of government. Republicans aren't failing to change expectations — they're not even trying. · 7 minutes ago
May '10
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Duane Oyen
...But, respectfully, most of these comments are politically nonsensical at this point in time.
But, if you seriously believe, Chris, that the national issue of health care is just the keening of liberal media, there are no words that would bring this back to reality...
It's true that the "national issue of health care" is a problem. But a) a lot of the problem is caused by government, and b) the solutions being forwarded are completely liberal (that is, even more government). All the while, the conservative solutions that are proven to work are not being championed enough by our side.
Instead, what I'm hearing from several of you in all this is that:
No sale.
Edited on February 2, 2012 at 7:10pmFeb '11
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Chris Deleon
Duane Oyen
We can fight that- but first we have to sign on to solve the problem, not just react to lefty proposals by yelling "no". · 1 minute ago
What this leads to, if you don't fight for conservative solutions, is the steady, slow(er) march to socialism.
This is exactly the problem with Romney. · 1 minute ago
The left understands that the way politics works is to shout the ideal and then, behind the veil of the rhetoric, compromise for what you can get, after which you repeat the process again and again. They understand that there are no magic bullets and that ideological purity rarely accomplishes more than ignoble defeat and/or electoral rebuff. A classic example is the incremental assault on education over the last 50 years. Bit by bit, they took over until they achieved the dominating position they hold today.
Republicans need to get rid of Obama, begin to recast Congress and the state legislatures, and start chipping away at the socialist welfare state. It isn't going to happen in one glorious electoral spectacular. There is no conservative white knight and never will be.
May '10
Re: Can You Support Romney Without Supporting Romneycare?
Aaron Miller
Here's a thought. How about we tax people less so that they can give more to charities? Charities have always focused on individuals who fall through the cracks.
How difficult is it, really, for a politician to tell the stories of various charities which serve people who need flu shots or kids dying of cancer and point out that every dollar going to bureaucrats in DC is not going to the people who provide face-to-face, individualized care for the sick and the poor?
Yes, our government is already in the healthcare business, so we must strive to change the expectations of citizens about the role of government. Republicans aren't failing to change expectations — they're not even trying.
Amen. Exactly! Instead of championing conservative solutions, we're stuck with watered-down, liberal-lite solutions, or just slowing down the growth of the government.
The government is in healthcare. Get it out, don't add more of it!