Republicans Have No Reason to Be Against Individual Mandate

You know, it's actually kind of funny.  The Republican Party has been constantly vilifying the individual mandate in the new universal healthcare law, yet they are the source of the idea.  

The idea first came up during the Nixon era as the alternative to the then-offered single-payer system by the Democrats.  It later resurfaced under George H. W. Bush.  The Bush Plan used "the tax system to 'encourage and empower' individuals to buy health insurance and would enact insurance market reforms that make it possible for everyone — even if they have pre-existing health problems — to get insurance." (see attached PDF, page 25)  That sounds remarkably similar to what was just signed into law...

It was also embraced by the Republican Party in Massachusetts quite recently.  Don't believe me?  Look up Romneycare.

So what did the Heritage Foundation have to say about it then, now that they decry it as unconstitutional?

In 1989 and 1993, the Heritage Foundation authored a proposal based largely around the individual mandate.  The following is from the Congressional Budget Office regarding that proposal in 1993:

In order to guarantee universal health care coverage, everyone would have to obtain insurance, either through a government program or from a private insurer, on their own or through a family member. The states would be charged with enforcing the mandate and would have to arrange coverage for people who did not do so themselves. The minimum insurance would cover "catastrophic" health care expenses — that is, those exceeding $1,000 a year for an individual or $2,000 a year for a family. (Those amounts would be adjusted for inflation after 1997.)

Still sound familiar?  It was introduced in 1993 by Senator Don Nickles (R-OK) as S. 1743 and Representative Cliff Stearns (R-FL) as H.R. 3698.  (And, if you didn't make note of it, Stearns voted against the similar legislation that passed this year.)

Here you go... more evidence that both parties are quite similar.