Romney And The Mandate

[heckofajobbrownie]

The Wall Street Journal has a big scoop today that you might have seen. They uncovered emails from Romney while he was Governor that Romney had tried to delete en masse, which was unheard of at the time. And they show him arguing for almost exactly the same type of health care mandate that the right wing was furious about and that his Republican opponents were attacking him with in the primary.

 

 

Here it is:

 

How Romney Pushed State Health Bill

Emails Show Governor Defending Insurance Mandate for Massachusetts Residents

 

By MARK MAREMONT

 

When Mitt Romney left office as Massachusetts governor, his aides removed all emails from a server computer in the governor's office, and purchased and carted off hard drives from 17 state-owned personal computers, according to a current state official.

 

But a small cache of emails survived, including some that have never publicly surfaced surrounding Mr. Romney's efforts to pass his now-controversial health-care law. The emails show the Republican governor was closely engaged in negotiating details of the bill, working with top Democratic state leaders and drafting early copies of opinion articles backing it.

 

Then-Gov. Romney with his health secretary, Timothy Murphy, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy after signing Massachusetts' health-care law in 2006.

 

Mr. Romney and his aides, meanwhile, strongly defended the so-called individual mandate, a requirement that everyone in Massachusetts have or buy heath insurance. And they privately discussed ideas that might be anathema to today's GOP—including publicly shaming companies that didn't provide enough health insurance to employees.

 

Mr. Romney signed the bill April 12, 2006, and that night sent an email thanking a top aide, saying the law would help "hundreds of thousands of people…have healthier and happier lives."

 

Through a public-records request, The Wall Street Journal obtained what is believed to be the most complete set of the internal emails to date, including attachments to some of the messages.

 

Mr. Romney once trumpeted the overhaul as his signature achievement as governor, but he has since played it down amid GOP attacks on the 2010 federal health-care bill signed by President Barack Obama, which bears similarities to the Massachusetts plan. Both contain individual mandates that require residents to buy health insurance.

 

Mr. Romney today defends the Massachusetts plan as a state initiative, while attacking what he calls "ObamaCare" as an unjustified federal takeover of the health-care system. Many Republicans oppose the individual mandate as unconstitutional, and the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on that issue.

 

A spokeswoman for the Romney campaign declined to comment on the emails.

 

In Massachusetts, Mr. Romney didn't include an individual mandate in his original proposal, but soon adopted the idea. The emails show his aides later came to champion it, even amid uncertainty from some Democrats. At the time, the mandate was a favored policy of the right, with the left instead pushing for government-run insurance programs.

 

"We must have an individual mandate for any plan to work," Tim Murphy, Mr. Romney's health secretary, wrote the governor and several aides on Feb. 16, 2006, in an email analyzing the latest confidential Democratic proposal, which he wrote was "unclear" about that requirement.

 

That Democratic proposal, obtained by the Journal, didn't include such a mandate, and instead focused on "individual responsibility," aiming to "encourage individuals to buy health insurance, not go uninsured."

 

According to the emails, Mr. Romney personally drafted an op-ed article published in The Wall Street Journal the day before he signed the legislation. The draft, written on a Saturday, also defended the individual mandate, in different language from the final version of the piece as published.

 

Using an argument deployed today by the Obama administration, Mr. Romney defended the mandate by noting that taxpayers generally foot the bill when the uninsured seek health care.

 

"Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on government is not libertarian," the published op-ed stated. In a line that didn't make the edited version, Mr. Romney added: "An uninsured libertarian might counter that he could refuse the free care, but under law, that is impossible—and inhumane."

 

Mr. Romney has defended the deletion of his administration's email, saying last November: "There has never been an administration that has provided to the opposition research team, or to the public, electronic communications."

 

Massachusetts officials initially thought all the emails were gone, a current official said, but emails of one cabinet member, then-Administration and Finance Secretary Thomas Trimarco, had been accidentally retained. The Journal requested copies of emails between Mr. Trimarco and top Romney officials.

 

In one message, sent from a private email account on a Sunday morning, Mr. Romney reported to aides his negotiations with then-State Senate President Robert Travaglini. "Spoke with Trav this AM," Mr. Romney wrote. "He isn't ready to sign on to the deal as yet but I am confident a deal can be struck…"

 

"Important: we are NOT to tell anyone where he is on these," Mr. Romney added, because "he will have to make his own trades down the road perhaps." Mr. Travaglini didn't return messages seeking comment.

 

All along, Mr. Romney opposed Democratic proposals to impose fees on businesses that didn't offer health insurance. The idea to publicly name companies apparently came as aides were trying to find other ways to motivate employers to give insurance.

 

"I know the dems hate this, but we can also [throw] back in the Gov's original notion of having some sort of 'public disclosure' of employers who promote a culture of uninsurance," wrote Cindy Gillespie, a top Romney adviser, to other officials Feb. 13, 2006.

 

Ms. Gillespie suggested asking companies to provide quarterly reports on their number of uninsured workers and publishing the list as an ad in the Boston Globe. "The Globe would love it and it would keep the issue of the uninsured front and center," she wrote.

 

Ms. Gillespie, now at a law firm in Washington, said, "it sounds like I had been up all night, making up silly ideas" to make the plan more palatable to Democrats. She said Gov. Romney never authorized proposing the idea to legislators.

 

Business groups generally opposed similar proposals in other states. In Congress, Democrats and unions have favored public disclosure to prod companies with a high proportion of uninsured employees.

 

—Rob Barry contributed to this article.

Write to Mark Maremont at mark.maremont@wsj.com

 

'Quite a day! … You have made a huge difference, for me and for hundreds of thousands of people who will have healthier and happier lives… Best, Mitt'

 

Mitt Romney email to Thomas Trimarco, his administration and finance secretary, on the evening of signing the Massachusetts health-care law April 12, 2006

[heckofajobbrownie]

Guess we'll just ignore this one.

[Westside Steve]

Guess we'll just ignore this one.

Or the empty suit's flip flop.

We'll ignore that too.

WSS

[MLD Woody]

Or the empty suit's flip flop.

We'll ignore that too.

WSS

 

Wait I'm confused

 

So it was bad before when Obama wanted healthcare

 

Now that we know Romney wanted the same thing it's bad that Obama at one point didn't want it?

 

 

Correct me if I'm wrong I'm just trying to follow

[calfoxwc]

A state health care system is not the same as a national healthcare system you can't get away from.

 

Please learn how to THINK. Honesty would be a great thing to add to your list of things to learn, too.

 

And Romney's hc in MASS. was never designed to do away with private health care companies.

 

But leave it to Heck to gloat over Romney's hacked emails. That's illegal - the hacking, Heck.

 

But, like most other libs. Heck would be outraged if it were Obamao's email that was hacked.

 

Same old dishonesty, same old hypocrisy on the left.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Oh, it's going to be so entertaining watching the same people who screamed about the end of liberty and freedom because of the insurance requirement pretend they no longer care, and that it's fine if a state does it, but that a national mandate is the end of freedom.

 

Yes, this wasn't about politics at all.

[calfoxwc]

Mass. isn't Ohio. End of story.

 

If I lived in Mass, I could move out.

 

You really aren't as bright as you posture yourself being.

 

You need another Shep - Little Johnnie Woodpecker isn't doing your posturing any good at all.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Or the empty suit's flip flop.

We'll ignore that too.

WSS

 

So Obama was claiming that Hillary's mandate was an unconstitutional affront to liberty and the end of freedom as we know it? I don't seem to remember that.

 

Let's not be dense.

[Lady Z]

Calfox in correct - a state plan is totally different than a national plan. Remember, people can still vote with their feet.

[Westside Steve]

Wait I'm confused

 

So it was bad before when Obama wanted healthcare

 

Now that we know Romney wanted the same thing it's bad that Obama at one point didn't want it?

 

 

Correct me if I'm wrong I'm just trying to follow

No problem woody I didn't know you during the 08 primary.

I supported mitt romney then until he dropped out then I supported hillary.

Why?

Well with bush hatred across the media I assumed a democrat president was inevitable.

Also inevitable as societies age and decay socialized medicine is a given.

Hillary has actually gone down that road before and probably had some sense of what may have been needed.

Her plan called for a public mandate. Since obama had absolutely no idea what his plan would be beyond handing out some free shit he opposed that.

I have always thought the public mandate was a necessary tool to make a socialized medicine work.

 

The public manate seems to be unpopular on both ends of the political spectrum.

It is ironically 1 of the reasons I supported romney then.

I understand that politicians often backtrack to appeal to the base.

 

I'm just giving my take on the issue, not the RNC or DNC.

WSS

[Westside Steve]

And it still may turn out to be unconstitutional.

WSS

[Westside Steve]

So Obama was claiming that Hillary's mandate was an unconstitutional affront to liberty and the end of freedom as we know it? I don't seem to remember that.

 

Let's not be dense.

Let's is plural.

So far it's just you...

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

Where's that gif of the saddened Star trek character?

[MLD Woody]

We're these actually hacked, or did they just do a bad job removing them?

[heckofajobbrownie]

No, this isn't from hacking. The WSJ story isn't based on emails from Romney's Hotmail account. It's from emails that were supposed to be deleted but weren't. You can look at them on their webpage.

[MLD Woody]

Then idk what cal is bitching about