Newt's a hoot..Gingrich Calls GOP Medicare Plan 'Right-Wing Social Engineering'
Published May 16, 2011
| The Wall Street Journal
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In this image released May 15 by NBC News, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is interviewed on NBC's "Meet the Press" in Washington.
White House hopeful Newt Gingrich called the House Republican plan for Medicare "right-wing social engineering," injecting a discordant GOP voice into the party's efforts to reshape both en lements and the broader budget debate.
In the same interview Sunday, on NBC's "Meet the Press," Mr. Gingrich backed a requirement that all Americans buy health insurance, complicating a Republican line of attack on President Barack Obama's health law.
The former House speaker's decision to stick with his previous support for an individual mandate comes days after former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney defended the health revamp he championed as governor, which includes a mandate.
The moves suggest the Republican primary contest, which will include both men, could feature a robust debate on health care, with GOP candidates challenging the Democratic law while defending their own variations.
Later Sunday, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he also acknowledged that many Republicans are uncomfortable with requiring insurance coverage but challenged them to offer an alternative solution. "Most Republican voters agree with the principle that people have some responsibility to pay for their costs," he said.
Mr. Gingrich also said he would like to see the mandate implemented at the state level, with states experimenting with alternative approaches. But he said he should apply to all Americans.
The Republican presidential field is beginning to take shape after an unusually long delay, with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee saying he would skip the 2012 race and the other candidates beginning to engage in substantive policy debates.
Mr. Huckabee declined to endorse any of the remaining candidates. His decision opens the door for other Republicans to court the Christian conservatives who fueled the former Baptist minister's 2008 campaign.
Mr. Gingrich, who has fashioned himself as a policy wonk in recent years, instantly roiled an already controversial debate over the U.S.'s long-term budget picture. He said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that seniors should not be required to use a new Medicare program, as envisioned by the House GOP, but should be persuaded to voluntarily migrate to a better system.
"I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering," he said when asked about a Medicare plan championed by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) as an element of the party's 2012 budget proposal. He said he was against "radical change" on the right and the left.
The House GOP budget would privatize Medicare for Americans under age 55. When they reach retirement age, they would receive a government subsidy to buy a private insurance policy instead of participating in the existing government-run system. The subsidies' value likely would not rise as quickly as health care costs are expected to rise.
Ryan spokesman Conor Sweeney said in response to Mr. Gingrich that Mr. Ryan's plan is the only serious proposal for Medicare, which faces long-term financial crisis as health costs rise and Baby Boomers join the program's ranks. "The most 'radical' course of action on Medicare is to continue to cling to the unsustainable status quo," he said.The GOP budget cleared the House as part of a budget outline without a single Democratic vote, and Democrats have sought to use the policy as a line of political attack with voters.
Republican leaders have said they do not plan to write legislation that would flesh out details of the concept. But they also say the Ryan plan remains their position in budget talks with the White House and the Senate.
Other Republican candidates for president, including Mr. Romney and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, have applauded Mr. Ryan for showing leadership in putting together a budget plan, but have declined to endorse its elements.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced Wednesday that he will seek the Republican nomination for president. Video courtesy of Fox News and photo courtesy of Getty Images.
.In the interview with the Journal, Mr. Gingrich also said that in advocating for big changes to Medicare, House Republicans have failed to both come up with the right policy, and to properly sell it to the country. He said bad salesmanship was part of President Obama's problem in pushing his own health care plan. "Republicans should learn. There's a big lesson there," he told the Journal.
Mr. Gingrich also stuck with his past support for the central plank of the Obama health plan—the mandate to buy insurance.
In 1993, Mr. Gingrich said Americans should be required to have health insurance just as they are required to have automobile insurance. Back then, he endorsed the use of vouchers to help everyone buy insurance. He also endorsed the use of income-based vouchers to help everyone buy insurance.
On Sunday, Mr. Gingrich said he opposes the Obama plan because it creates a "Washington-based model, a federal system" with exchanges that try to "replace the entire insurance system."
He also contended that people should be required to buy coverage or post a bond to cover their costs should they need care and lack insurance. Like Mr. Romney—and Mr. Obama—Mr. Gingrich spoke of the "free rider" problem: those who go uninsured and then don't pay their bills when they get sick, spreading the costs across the system.
"All of us have a responsibility to help pay for health care," he said Sunday.
When Mr. Gingrich endorsed the mandate in 1993, many Democrats were pressing for a government-run health system without private insurance companies. The mandate—a badge of individual responsibility—was seen then as a conservative alternative.
In 2012, Mr. Gingrich may find these views problematic in the Republican contests, where a large number of voters view the Obama health plan as Exhibit A in government overreach. A lawsuit brought by mostly GOP governors argues the Obama mandate is uncons utional.
"I'd like Speaker Gingrich to show me in the Cons ution where the government has the right to force people to buy health insurance," said Debbie Dooley, state coordinator for the Georgia Tea Party Patriots. "That's going to hurt him among tea party activists, extremely."
Kama Sutra for policy wonks: Newt Gingrich takes multiple positions on Medicare repeal
Yesterday, he came out against Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare as we know it because he said it was too "radical."
The thing is, a week earlier, he had declared his support for the plan. And long before that, he'd proposed a plan which would have worked pretty much the same way as the Ryan plan.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/0...28Daily+Kos%29
Newt Gingrich Swiftly Takes Back Critique Of Ryan Plan, Renounces Individual Mandate
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_862404.html
Despite Criticism Of Paul Ryan, Gingrich Proposed Nearly Identical Plan In 1995
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/16/...cher-medicare/
Newt was for medicare vouchers and an individual insurance mandate before he was against them.
boutons is absolutely orgasmic over this. Must be a great thread.
Newt's Oscar is definately missing it's Meyer.
...crass sexual innuendo -- a DarrinS specialty.
(Zero clown points, one Ed McMahon point awarded for forced hilarity)
Newt's all over the place, as usual. My working hypothesis is that he can't keep his story straight because he basically has no core beliefs and can't resist any chance for self-promotion.
I heard somebody say he's positioning himself as an "ideas man", but of the 100 ideas he has every day, 99+ are bad.
His self-delusion and egomania are amusing.
"I agree that all of us have a responsibility to help pay for health care. And I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I've said consistently, where there's some requirement you either have health insurance or you post a bond or in some way you indicate you're going to be held accountable."
-- Newt Gingrich, on Meet the Press yesterday, acknowledging his previous support of the individual mandate.
"I am completely opposed to the ObamaCare mandate on individuals. I fought it for two and a half years."
-- Gingrich, in a video released today.
Gingrich is nothing but a liar. The fact that he is getting serious run for a nomination is a god damn shame. The media deserves to be roasted for their inability to call this guy exactly what he is every time he's on air whether the network be Fox News, MSNBC or NPR.
The lying going on at the current time by several GOP politicians is the worse I've ever seen in politics. Thats a tough standard to meet.
That cartoon exemplifies everything is wrong with the GOP right now. They're not leading at all. Whether it is the individual mandate or cap and trade, issues they were for in the past for actual good reasons are now items they argue against for political reasons. And while thats always been something that politicians do, the complete inability to lead an explain why you were for these issues in the past and why they still make sense today is as gutless as it gets.
I never understood what the point of getting into office was if you had to sell out on all the issues you actually believed in to get there. Well, I do understand it, but being thirsty for power merely for the sake of having it is not a good indicator that I want that person in office to begin with.
Repugs offer nothing contstructive, only obstructionism and opposition to everything Dem, even if the Repugs supported the Dem position sometime in the recent past.
The Dems still have the Senate and the Presidency.
Too bad for their own cons uency they didn't get more done when they had the House as well. Maybe they were too busy pretending, like board libs nowadays, that the GOP was still in charge.
The Repugs ACT like they are in charge, and the ing Dems and Barry let them BE in charge.
So then blame the Dems for giving away the store.
It's not the GOP's fault Obama and the Dems are spineless.
"blame the Dems for giving away the store."
they kept giving the Repugs and sick-care industry compromises, which really screwed up the act, and the Repugs still didn't vote for it.
WH, I don't see how your posts address the fact that the GOP is pretty much arguing against its own positions.
Already addressed upstream. Opportunism and no values. Now I'm tormenting boutons. Why are you interfering?
So either the Dems are really stupid, OR they were in bed with the "sick care industry" every bit as much as the GOP.
...or both.
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