Yep, it is entertaining, watching him try to weasel around mandate issue. That was a nice try, but pretty weak.

I'm confused Heartlight3! Ronald Reagan's "Sagebrush Rebellion" was all abut federalism and States rights--The 10th Ammendent. The mandate esures (no pun intended) that every Massachusetts resident is covered. It takes power from the federal government and gives it to the individual States. Mitt will grab a horn of the mandate dilemma and ride his Mormon bull right into America's Whitehouse--ye-ha!

That is a very weak argument. The federal government was given very limited powers by the Constitution , so merely preferring "health care standards should be national" is not enough to justify a federal power grab, and socialized medicine.

People are free to move between states , so if you dont like the 'health care standards' of one, feel free to re-locate. The strength of our Union is that states are laboratories, and whatever works in one state will be borrowed by others.

The current medical insurance system, problematic as it is, is also "socialized medicine," because we do not pay premiums that only cover ourselves, but rather we pay premiums that can be used for anyone's coverage. We are not talking about a "federal power grab" either. Most insurance companies tailor their policies to individual states, which is costly and redundant. Very few cover all states. If you get insurance coverage through an employer, and you lose the job (and coverage), you have to re-apply for insurance, usually at a higher rate. If you buy insurance for yourself, and change states, you will see the cost of premiums change. In addition, if you want to find cheaper insurance, you have to hope that you do not have a "pre-existing" condition -- high blood pressure, asthma, allergies, to name a few -- because once those are diagnosed they make any future insurance more expensive. There are federal standards for all interstate commerce. If people adopted the Republican plan of "buying insurance across state lines," it would become interstate commerce and under federal jurisdiction.

Isn't it funny how the same Thomas Jefferson the Tea Party is always pointing to thought that the Supreme Court over stepped it's bounds in 1803 with it's ruling on the Marbury v. Madison Case? With that ruling they set up the judicial review where they could nullify actions of the two other branches of the government. Apparently John Marshall, William Paterson, Samuel Chase and Bushrod Washington were the original activist judges.

Why is it that they can force you to have car insurance but not medical? Just a thought.

If health insurance was true pooled risk coverage, it would probably reduce premiums a good bit, but unlike auto where everyone insured by a particular company pays into one pot and draws claim coverage from that same pot, health insurance is much more group-based. It works wonderfully if you have a large group with thousands of insureds paying in because there are enough low-use people to offset the handful of high-use folks. Those of us with small groups, though, get raked over the coals. I negotiate the plan for my firm, 20 people total, 10 who take the health coverage and our monthly premium is over $8,000 for a high deductible plan (I believe $3000 individual, $6000 family) so there is almost no way for us to reduce that expense, especially if I want to keep a plan that is of some use to my staff. If you think that this expense doesn't play into hiring decisions, you're flat out wrong- I've participated in those discussions. None of this is necessarily new since ACA was signed into law, but it is, to me, at least, the elephant in the room- the bill as passed did nothing to help reduce those costs or even begin to touch the actual cost of care. Our payroll excludes us from any subsidies offered in the bill, we are too small a group to qualify for reasonable rates on our own and we aren't allowed to pool with other small groups. So far I've been able to table any discussion of eliminating health coverage entirely but if premiums continue to rise unchecked, I don't know how long that will remain the case- it will be cheaper to pay the fine and let our staff figure it out for themselves than it will to continue to offer them coverage. I'd rather see the bill scrapped completely and rewritten to address the root cause of our medical expenditures than continue to gift insurance companies larger and larger profit margins while making the cost of insurance (and therefore health care in general) more expensive.

Moonbats dont do nuance ...claim tolerance, then dive right into religious antiMormon bigotry...

As to the "Mormon thing" , Jon Huntsman comes from a Mormon background, too.

Republicans don't do nuance.

Really?

See the post on forcing a senate vote on HCR bill...

Great point - no choice there. To qoute the Pres: "WTF."

Wow, I can't tell if it's just abject ignorance or dem4life is just a silly little bird.

Social Security is the greatest ponzy scheme ever perpetrated on the American public but since it is sanctioned by Congress, no one's going to jail over it as would happen if the same thing happened in the private sector. But at any rate, social security is at least paid in and drawn out on an equal basis. We all have the same percentage of wage withheld and eventually, we all draw out based on the same calculation. Its not bought and sold on the open market and rates paid are not determined on an individual basis.

Imagine, if you will, the backlash if Congress passed a mandate requiring all employers to offer and all employees to participate in a 401k plan and the contribution level for each individual will be determined by Wall Street underwriters? Sure, participation in a 401k plan is a great idea, but no matter how much some want to participate, it doesn't mean it's affordable. Forcing investment in a private corporation who's primary goal is to answer to it's shareholders instead of protect the best interests of its customers would be considered an abomination.