It is important, I think, for everyone to realize that by and large, Republicans lie as a matter of course. Most of them claim to love Jesus which gives one pause until you realize that they have reinterpreted Jesus' words to mean the ends justify the means! Because they actually believe that it has become part of their essence and to lie, then, is perfectly all right so long as it helps to bring down that socialist, Muslim, fascist, unAmerican, black guy in the White House.
(A very young, and very stupid acquaintance of mine, educated in an ultra-right-wing Christianist diploma mill never had a chance to get smart. And although he is convinced that he loves Jesus with his whole heart and will definitely go to heaven and plans to give his life to Jesus by convincing Jews and other apostates of the need to convert to his brand of Christianity, he readily lies about the president of the United States. He can do that because his small little brain, no doubt wired at random, believes Mr. Obama is a Muslim, a socialist, and is involved in a conspiracy to bring down the United States. But he goes one further: Obama, he says, is the epitome of evil. He is the anti-Christ!)
The Republican candidates who finally wound up their sad little shows in Iowa, operate in the same way. Truth seems not to concern them. Mr. Romney claims that President Obama created no new jobs in his two years, when the reality is much different. Mr. Romney claims that he created lots of new jobs while at Bain but the truth is the opposite! We've noted previously that each of the Republican wannabees operates the same way - with no or little regard for the truth.
Each of these wannabees hates what Republicans often call "Obamacare." The lies that have been told about Obamacare would fill a book. Who can forget Palin's romance with "death panels." Bachmann, since the bill was passed, has fought it tooth and nail. Lots of Americans listen to these nogoodniks and determine if they say Obamacare is a socialist plot, it must be true. Ignorance rules.
There's a wonderful article in the December 23 issue of "The Week." Here are some items gleaned from this article:
1) A conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, was first to propose making health insurance mandatory. In the late 1980s. The Heritage people weren't suggesting this out of the goodness of their heart, mind you, that would be too "unRepublicanlike." They were concerned about how universal health insurance might cost the insurance companies too much. If insurance companies could no longer reject people with pre-existing conditions, they would be financially stressed because young and healthy folks might put off buying health insurance until they became sick. Voila! The individual mandate where everyone is required to buy health insurance!
2) In the early 90s, President Clinton pushed for companies to provide their employees with health insurance. A number of Republicans immediately jumped up to offer the individual mandate as part of that plan. Here's a quote from ol' Newt:
"I am for people, individuals--exactly like automobile insurance--having health insurance and being required to have health insurance."
I don't think that's what he is saying now. In fact, I'd guess that would be second most terrible thing he did in his life other than sitting down with Nancy Pelosi to begin working on a solution to the problem of global warming.
But the whole business went down the tubes in 1994.
3) Ten years later, though, the good ol' lying Mitt Romney, now the guv of Massachusetts, brought the notion of the individual mandate to the good folks of that state. The state health-care plan required everyone to buy in or pay a penalty - "up to $1,212 in annual penalties."
When the law went into effect, Mitt told the world "It's [his health plan] is a Republican way of reforming the market. [To have] people who show up [at a hospital] when they get sick, and expect someone else to pay, that's a Democratic approach."
Whee! What a turnaround from the Mitt campaigning in Iowa!
4) Although Obama initially rejected the Republican notion of an individual mandate, he eventually came to see it was the right thing to do. He "allowed his 2010 Affordable Care Act to incorporate a provision that, by 2014, all Americans must have health coverage or face a tax penalty."
Do you remember the faux Republican outrage? "Conservatives decried that directive as a gross infringement of individual liberty [remember this was a Republican plan from the get-go!], and their anger helped fuel the rise of the Tea Party."
But the party's not over yet. "Twenty-six states and the National Federation of Independent Businesses are now challenging the mandate's constitutionality at the Supreme Court, which will make a final judgment in June."
Stay tuned! The hypocrisy is running rampant over the golden plains and majestic mountains of our land!
[Specific information on healthcare reform was taken from "A mandate for controversy," p. 13, THE WEEK, December 23, 2011]
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