The purpose of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is to expand the number of the insured in order to increase the revenue to the giant insurance corporations in order to offset the loss of revenue caused by the more progressive elements of the law, particularly the end of denials coverage due to preexisting conditions and allowing parents to cover children up to the age of 26.
The individual mandate was a right-wing invention. It was created by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. But now Republicans in Congress are looking at polls showing that while voters still don’t like the right-wing individual mandate — which has been vilified in the conservative media for three years now — but do like the liberal provisions in the law, like ending denial of coverage and extending coverage to young-adult children.
Therefore, the GOP leadership in the House and Senate is signalling that, if the Republicans on the Supreme Court overturn the Affordable Care Act, as they are expected to do next month, congressional Republicans will propose new laws to reinstate the popular but revenue-draining aspects of the law but without any provision to replace the mandate as a vehicle to recoup the insurance corporations’ lost revenue:
Sen. Roy Blunt (MO), vice chair of the Senate GOP Conference, offered a ringing defense of the “Obamacare” under-26 provision, and said he wouldn’t oppose ideas he previously supported simply because President Obama adopted them.
“I believe that’s one of the things that the Congress would surely reinstate,” Blunt told the St. Louis radio station KTRS in an interview last Thursday, pointing out that he has offered similar legislation in the past. “It’s a way to get a significant number of the uninsured into an insurance group without much cost. … It’s one of the things I think should continue.”
“I’ve been in a couple meetings lately and there’s some general understanding that that’s one of the things … and there are other things like that as well,” the senator added.
A GOP health aide explained the strategy on the shift: “Come up with a plan and come up with a plan quick to deal with popular … provisions. An interesting twist will be money spent and continued implementation. There could be a deal struck on those two issues as well.” The aide said Democrats would have a hard time turning down a Republican proposal to reinstate some of the law’s most popular pieces.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (TN), asked by TPM if he believes his party should back the pre-existing conditions and under-26 laws, didn’t endorse specifics but affirmed that his party ought to have a plan ready. “Well, I think we need to be prepared,” he said. “And we will be prepared.”
And guess who’s unhappy about this? The same sort of right wingers who originally supported the individual mandate before Pres. Obama adopted it, much to the dismay of liberals, who wanted a simpler, Medicare-for-all plan.
All of this chicanery could be avoided if the insurance corporations would do what Republicans claim that only businesses can do: Solve the insurance crisis themselves by creating plans that are affordable to everyone.
