Tag: Romneycare

For Tea Partyists Who Still Don’t Believe Obamacare Is a Republican Invention, Here Is Ultimate Proof

Jon Ponder

Transcript:

MITT ROMNEY: When [the uninsured] show up at the hospital, they get care. They get free care, paid for by you and me. If that’s not a form of socialism, I don’t know what is. So my plan [Romneycare] did something quite different. It said, you know what?, if people can afford to buy insurance, if they can afford to buy insurance, or if they can pay their own way, then they either buy that insurance or pay their own way, but they no longer look to government to hand out free care. And that, in my opinion, is the ultimate conservatism.

That’s why the Heritage Foundation worked with us and was at the celebration of the signing — the Heritage Foundation, as you know, a quintessentially conservative group, recognized that the principles of free enterprise and personal responsibility were at work. You know, I’m proud to talk about what we did. We did not need to raise taxes. We did not need to have the government take over healthcare. Instead we rely on private market dynamics to get people in our state insured and for individuals to finally take responsibility for some portion of their healthcare rather than expecting government to give ’em a free ride.

From a report by Michael Issikoff, NBC News, on Oct. 11, 2011:

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After Railing against the Individual Mandate for Years, Top Teabagger Jim DeMint Quits Senate to Lead Organization That Invented the Individual Mandate

Jon Ponder

In 2009, not long after Pres. Obama and the Democrats opted to forgo the single-payer option for health-insurance reform and go instead with the conservatives’ option of mandating that individuals must buy insurance from insurance corporations, the right wing abruptly disavowed their own plan, even going so far as to label it “socialism” and demonize it by referring to it as Obamacare.

Few pols and propagandists were more persistent in pushing the false narrative that Obamacare and its individual mandate were jack-booted socialism than the top teabagger in the Senate, Jim DeMint of South Carolina. Now, in one of those ironic turns in politics that you couldn’t possibly make up, DeMint has announced he is resigning from the Senate to run the same right-wing “thimk” tank that invented the individual mandate back in 1993, the Heritage Foundation.

[…]

Flashback: Romney VP Pick Paul Ryan Calls Romneycare and the Heritage Foundation’s Individual Mandate a ‘Fatal Conceit’

Jon Ponder

The Romney campaign underwent heavy bombardment from its own right flank this week after it flip-flopped from its longtime stance of pretending that Romneycare does not exist to promoting it as a solution for enabling laid-off workers to keep health-insurance coverage after they lose their jobs.

But now that Romney has picked Rep. Paul Ryan to be his running mate, the campaign is going to have to somehow walk back Ryan’s thorough trashing of Romneycare — including the individual mandate, which was created at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank so right wing that it sponsors Rush Limbaugh’s show — including his labeling of the system as a “fatal conceit.” Transcript follows:

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Rush Limbaugh’s Show Is Underwritten by the Right-Wing Think Tank Responsible for the Individual Mandate and Romneycare

Jon Ponder

logo-heritageProduct placement has become such a subtle art form these days that it’s hard to tell the difference between advertising and the editorial or entertainment content. Case in point, right-leaning Politico.com a reports that the tea party astroturfers, Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, and the Heritage Foundation, a Reaganite intellectual boneyard, are quietly underwriting the Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck radio shows, at a cost of several millions dollars:

POLITICO: In search of donations and influence, the three prominent conservative groups are paying hefty sponsorship fees to the popular talk show hosts. Those fees buy them a variety of promotional tie-ins, as well as regular on-air plugs – praising or sometimes defending the groups, while urging listeners to donate – often woven seamlessly into programming in ways that do not seem like paid advertising.

Those fees buy them a variety of promotional tie-ins, as well as regular on-air plugs — praising or sometimes defending the groups, while urging listeners to donate — often woven seamlessly into programming in ways that do not seem like paid advertising…

The Heritage Foundation pays about $2 million to sponsor Limbaugh’s show and about $1.3 million to do the same with Hannity’s…

Those millions also buy lies. […]