Et Tu, Newt?
Newt Gingrich on Romneycare in 2006:
The most exciting development of the past few weeks is what has been happening up in Massachusetts. The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system.
Individuals who can afford to purchase health insurance and simply choose not to place an unnecessary burden on a system that is on the verge of collapse; these free-riders undermine the entire health system by placing the onus of responsibility on taxpayers.
The Romney plan attempts to bring everyone into the system. The individual mandate requires those who earn enough to afford insurance to purchase coverage, and subsidies will be made available to those individuals who cannot afford insurance on their own.
With Romney and Gingrich demonstrating their penchants for managerial progressivism, and 71% of likely Iowa caucus-goers either undecided or only leaning towards a candidate, don't be surprised if Perry, Santorum, or Bachmann have a surprisingly strong showing in Iowa.
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Dec '10
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
The difference between the two is that Newt has repented while Romney continues to see no sin against liberty in the scheme. Yes, I'm hoping for a strong showing from a third horse in Iowa, just not Paul.
Feb '11
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
Ian Hanchett: Newt Gingrich on Romneycare in 2006:
don't be surprised if Perry, Santorum, or Bachmann have a surprisingly strong showing in Iowa. ·
No if there were only one, rather than three...
Apr '11
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
Ian Hanchett: Newt Gingrich on Romenycare in 2006:
"Individuals who can afford to purchase health insurance and simply choose not to place an unnecessary burden on a system that is on the verge of collapse; these free-riders undermine the entire health system by placing the onus of responsibility on taxpayers."
Here is the problem. Newt's quote above encapsulates the statist argument for state run healthcare: The burden of the uninsured falls upon the taxpayer; ergo, why not have the taxpayer pick up the tab for everyone.
Conservatives need to develop a principled response to this argument. In one of the Republican Presidential debates some (adjective omitted in compliance with COC) news reader suggested that a free market approach to the healthcare problem would allow the uninsured to die on gurney's in the waiting room. The brief cheer from some of those in attendance stimulated much onanism by the media.
I think the answer goes something like this: The working people of this country carry many burdens. Redistributing the burden of health care to make working people suffer is not "progress."
Help me out here.
Dec '10
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
R0bert Scott
Help me out here. · Dec 27 at 10:54am
The free rider problem is the price we pay for individual liberty in health care. Conservatives place a high value on the liberty, so their cost/benefit analysis sees market driven health care as the better option even if the end result is some amount of inequality. Free riders get a good deal, and the rest of us pick up the tab through government or increased private insurance premiums. Liberals, on the other hand, place a lower value on liberty and a higher one on equality, so their analysis sees forced equality at the expense of liberty as the right solution. No one gets to game the system in their model, but everyone gets an equal amount of less health care for all. It really is a binary choice. At least I can see no middle way between the two.
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
The problem I see with both Gingrich and Romney is that both don't seem to be anti-big government. Romney's "Keep the good and throw out the bad" approach to Obamacare and Gingrich's support of the individual mandate seem to point to a progressive approach that says "I want to be president so I can make big government more efficient."
Jan '11
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
R0bert Scott The working people of this country carry many burdens. Redistributing the burden of health care to make working people suffer is not "progress."
Help me out here.
I don't know if this helps you out, but let me say this.
The decision to buy healthcare insurance is a gamble. Someone who gambles against buying insurance ... may be gambling wisely. The free-rider problem only happens when someone doesn't buy insurance but who then uses healthcare services. But if he never uses it, he isn't a free-rider. His gamble is wise and prudent.
On the other hand, market forces always adjust the price to the ability to pay. If the government takes over the payments, there is no bottom to the pit. The collective price skyrockets for everyone ...
One wonders whether fear of a few free riders is magnified to compel people to switch to the bottomless pit payment scheme ... was this was the plan all along?
Apr '11
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
Robert, I agree completely and it is amazing that among the front runners there is not one Republican, it seems, that is capable of making that argument, truly sad.
Newt has repented for now but I have little faith that he would not swing back around again for reasons of political pandering or he felt it made him sound smart.
Though I love all three, I predict a strong showing from Perry, probably not a win but hopefully second, and Bachmann and Santorum will bow-out giving Perry a large conservative voting block. This would be Romney's worst nightmare because Perry has the resources and the ground game to actually defeat him. And in fact, Perry's stumble earlier may have been a blessing in disguise because Romney was forced to focus his energy on each of the other temporary front runners and not Perry. If Perry comes on strong now after the voting begins, Romney will have less time to pivot and attack Perry unlike if he had remained the front run challenger from the beginning.
May '10
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
With Romney and Gingrich demonstrating their penchants for managerial progressivism...
SInce Reagan left office with essentially all of the federal government still intact, I guess he's a "managerial progressive," too?
Edited on December 27, 2011 at 8:35pmMar '11
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
Israel P.
Ian Hanchett: Newt Gingrich on Romneycare in 2006:
don't be surprised if Perry, Santorum, or Bachmann have a surprisingly strong showing in Iowa. ·
No if there were only one, rather than three... · Dec 27 at 10:39am
I'm thinking Bachmann when we get to vote in AZ. Of course, it could all be different by then...
Apr '11
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
To me, "the free rider problem" is the statist's way of calling all of us skin-flints unwilling to meet our obligations if we choose not to buy into an insurance system dramatically influenced by government meddling through the restriction of the commerce clause and the free market.
When I hear the term "free rider" my right arm and fist instinctively swing in an upward motion folding over on my left forearm in the speakers general direction.
Aug '10
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
No mention of Ron Paul?
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
KC Mulville
R0bert Scott The working people of this country carry many burdens. Redistributing the burden of health care to make working people suffer is not "progress."
Help me out here.
I don't know if this helps you out, but let me say this.
The decision to buy healthcare insurance is a gamble. Someone who gambles against buying insurance ... may be gambling wisely. The free-rider problem only happens when someone doesn't buy insurance but who then uses healthcare services. But if he never uses it, he isn't a free-rider. His gamble is wise and prudent.
On the other hand, market forces always adjust the price to the ability to pay. If the government takes over the payments, there is no bottom to the pit. The collective price skyrockets for everyone ...
One wonders whether fear of a few free riders is magnified to compel people to switch to the bottomless pit payment scheme ... was this was the plan all along? · Dec 27 at 11:14am
Your penultimate paragraph is a gem.
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
ParisParamus: With Romney and Gingrich demonstrating their penchants for managerial progressivism...
SInce Reagan left office with essentially all of the federal government still intact, I guess he's a "managerial progressive," too? · Dec 27 at 11:17am
Edited on Dec 27 at 11:35 am
No, Reagan did what he could. And with the House controlled by the Democrats through his entire Presidency, that was not much. He also had another problem to cope with -- the Soviet Union. And that ate up his time and energy.
Let me add that Reagan did not press for new entitlements programs or for an expansion of the existing programs.
Edited on December 27, 2011 at 9:27pmMay '10
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
So, Prof. Rahe, I know this thread is about Newt, but given the transitive property of peapods, I think it's fair game to ask what evidence there is that, on balance, Mitt Romney is any more of a "managerial progressive" than Ronald Reagan? Is it rhetoric? Deeds? Shouldn't every company Romney took from red and failing to in the black be put in the scale with Romneycare?
Apr '11
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
Paul A. Rahe
ParisParamus: With Romney and Gingrich demonstrating their penchants for managerial progressivism...
SInce Reagan left office with essentially all of the federal government still intact, I guess he's a "managerial progressive," too? ·
No, Reagan did what he could. And with the House controlled by the Democrats through his entire Presidency, that was not much. He also had another problem to cope with -- the Soviet Union. And that ate up his time and energy.
Let me add that Reagan did not press for new entitlements programs or for an expansion of the existing programs. ·
He believed in the New Deal, and did not "do what he could" to dismantle it. He repeatedly expanded the state, including a new department and the most devastating post-war assault on Constitutional limits on federal power (South Dakota v. Dole). He introduced the healthcare mandates that wreck the market today, Labor regulation (WARN) and amnesty. O'Connor. Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988 (Obamacare for old people, thankfully repealed by Bush 41).
Spending could not have increased as fast as it did if he'd been more heavily committed to slowing it. Reagan was great, but not pure.
Edited on December 28, 2011 at 3:28amApr '11
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
Paul A. Rahe
Let me add that Reagan did not press for new entitlements programs or for an expansion of the existing programs. ·
Sorry, let me just focus on this claim and CatCare, Reagan's unparalleled expansion of Medicare. His successor saving him doesn't make Reagan conservative any more than it will Obama if he loses the election.
Apr '11
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
Newt has repented of some of his individual mandate schemes; he has repeatedly apologized for 1993. In May 2011, though, well after he had turned against the mandate, he was still supporting "a variation on it". Talks on it, promotion of it, and other interaction with it have formed a mainstay of his post-Speaker career.
Like apologizing for his AGW stuff with Pelosi, he repudiates a very specific proposal, but keeps proposals essentially the same as those he was supporting at the time, such that today his website promotes the raising of new tax revenue from energy companies to fund wind farms et. al., one of the two alternatives developed with Pelosi.
Apr '11
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
Btw, finding the above link to the "right wing social engineering" speech reminded me of just how relevant it is to this post.Newt wasn't just endorsing Romneycare as a concept in 2006 (and in 2005), but as late as May this year:
MR. GREGORY: You agree with Mitt Romney on this point.
REP. GINGRICH: Well, I agree that all of us have a responsibility to pay--help pay for health care. And, and I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I've said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond...
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
REP. GINGRICH: ...or in some way you indicate you're going to be held accountable.
MR. GREGORY: But that is the individual mandate, is it not?
REP. GINGRICH: It's a variation on it.
May '10
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
No, Reagan did what he could. And with the House controlled by the Democrats through his entire Presidency, that was not much. He also had another problem to cope with -- the Soviet Union. And that ate up his time and energy.
So Reagan gets a pass, or a weighted grade, but Romney does not, even though he arguably had a less conservative legislature to work with than Reagan did. Why is that fair?
Apr '11
Re: Et Tu, Newt?
ParisParamus: No, Reagan did what he could. And with the House controlled by the Democrats through his entire Presidency, that was not much. He also had another problem to cope with -- the Soviet Union. And that ate up his time and energy.
So Reagan gets a pass, or a weighted grade, but Romney does not, even though he arguably had a less conservative legislature to work with than Reagan did. Why is that fair? ·
Reagan followed Carter. He gave really, really, good speeches. Fantastic ones (with much of the responsibility for the shift in public mood going to his instincts, personality and delivery rather than his unbelievably good and Ricochet founding speechwriters). He beat the Soviets, in a host of ways. Morning in America. Enormous tax cuts. Unprecedented cultural opposition to sweeten the victories (Reagan is pretty much the first President not to have positive songs written about him).
There's a lot to love about Reagan, and as Prof. Rahe notes, falling in love with a politician can make you blind to his faults. When people talk about Romney not "getting" it, a lot of the time they mean that he doesn't make them feel like Reagan did.