damn_registrars's Journal: Epic Reading Fail (health insurance bailout)

There are creative cases of conservatives attempting to cover up their motivations of politics above all else, and then there are epic reading failures as a result. In particular I bring to attention smitty's amazing inability to read his own source:

Yeah, that's been debunked: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/06/dont-blame-heritage-for-obamacare-mandate/ [heritage.org] But you keep playing that card as you whistle past the graveyard, girl. Obama's perfidy is too publicly on display. The Democrats own it.

This was in response to my reminding him that the Health Insurance Industry Bailout Act of 2010 (aka the Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare") was indeed driven primarily by goals of the Heritage Foundation in an attempt to bring over conservative votes. We all know of course that it resembles "RomneyCare" from Massachusetts more than it does anything that Obama or any liberal championed while running for office, but what Smitty shared here in an attempt to distance conservatives from the 2010 bill only cements their legacy within it:

we sought to induce people to buy coverage primarily through the carrot of a generous health credit or voucher, financed in part by a fundamental reform of the tax treatment of health coverage

Sound familiar? Anyone who paid attention to the SCOTUS ruling on the act knows that the supreme court ruled the mandate constitutional because it is ... wait for it ... a tax. In other words, it was exactly what the Heritage Foundation wanted.

Naturally it was - after all, they wrote the damned bill.

Doesn't matter who owns the gun

[fustakrakich]

But who pulled the trigger?

To get all technical and stuff, the dems passed the law, and the republicans are off the hook. Golf clap

Re:

[damn_registrars]

My point may be a little obtuse here. Smitty is trying to claim that the Health Insurance Industry Bailout Act of 2010 was some grand socialist takeover of all things American (TM). I pointed out that the bill was essentially handed down to congress by the Heritage Foundation, and he then provided the link that supported my claim.

Sure, the democrats passed it. Would they have ever attempted to pass a non-corporate-handout bill? I like to think so, but we can't say for sure if they would have or not.

Neither the gun nor the trigger matter

[smittyoneeach]

We're talking about a class of people who prefer "shaping operations" to truth. No, what matters to the corrupt mind is who can lie best, loudest, and last.

As for the Heritage matter,

[One dude at Heritage] held the view that as a technical matter, some form of requirement to purchase insurance was needed in a near-universal insurance market to avoid massive instability through “adverse selection” (insurers avoiding bad risks and healthy people declining coverage). At that time, President Clinton was proposing a universal health care plan, and Heritage and [he] devised a viable alternative.

So, yeah, one guy at Heritage had an idea, which means that all of Heritage agreed, which means that all conservatives are responsible for ObamaCare, which means that there was a Vulcan mind meld, and conservatives telekinetically broke down Obama's will and used him like a meat puppet to sign the Affordable Care Act. We've s

Re:

[damn_registrars]

Don't be stupid.

[One dude at Heritage] held the view that as a technical matter, some form of requirement to purchase insurance was needed in a near-universal insurance market to avoid massive instability through âoeadverse selectionâ (insurers avoiding bad risks and healthy people declining coverage). At that time, President Clinton was proposing a universal health care plan, and Heritage and [he] devised a viable alternative.

So, yeah, one guy at Heritage had an idea, which means that all of Heritage agreed

He was allowed to write on the Heritage site, on behalf of Heritage, was he not? If you want to make an argument that he was some kind of minority opinion within that group, arguing for a mandate while everyone else was opposed - in spite of the fact that Heritage celebrated RomneyCare in Massachusetts - then give us a reason to believe you.

However, if we give the Heritage foundation the same amount of group flexibility in thought as you give to the democratic party (which is, of cours

Re:

[smittyoneeach]

If he had vetoed it - even though it was a terrible bill that had nothing of what he wanted in it - he would have a legacy as someone who vetoed the only health care bill to reach the president's desk in decades.

That has to win some kind of award for perverse, left-handed logic. You appear to be saying that cowardice is the new courage. No, he's the President, and this is his dirty diaper. He owns this legacy, picked lock, corrupted stock, and perforated barrel.

Re:

[damn_registrars]

He owns this legacy, picked lock, corrupted stock, and perforated barrel.

He signed it with his own hand, indeed. However it was his legacy that he was facing on that piece of paper. Had he pulled out the veto on it he never would have had another chance at a health care bill as president. Furthermore, the bill reflected none of what he wanted as Candidate Obama and will never lead to what he wanted back then.

What he signed was what the Heritage foundation wanted. Even they aren't cowardly to try to lie around that - and they are generally quite comfortable with lying for