Republicans and the Individual Mandate

Just because a core of conservatives, from years past, endorsed a nation-wide individual health insurance mandate neither indicates nor indicts the GOP as party sponsors for a such an extravagant expansion of state power.

Former House Speaker and current Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich proposed the idea in response to the Democratic party's frightful insight: a single-payer system, run by the government. Not only would Americans have to buy insurance under such an incredulous plan, but the government would be the primary insurer and health-care provider. Hilary Clinton helped instigate the first major shellacking of the Democratic party, promoting a destructive division of conservative and liberal Democrats in Congress, exacerbated by forty years of corruption by House leadership.

Canada, the Scandinavian countries, and even Great Britain have inadvertently, although consistently, exploded the mythic oxymoron of "universal healthcare", which is neither "universal", owing to the forced rationing which ensues when health care becomes "free"; nor "health care" due to the long lines, and longer stretches of pain and suffering which patients must  endure. In some reported cases, pregnant mothers have given birth in hallways surrounding the maternity wards, as the newborns simply will not wait an extra month before a harassed and overburdened obstetrician becomes available.

Gingrich publicly repudiated his support for the individual mandate, and front-runner Mitt Romney has not even mentioned such a horrific scheme for the country, despite having shepherded a state-wide equivalent in the Bay State during his tenure as governor.

The sudden emergence of this hollow argument regarding the Republican origin of the individual mandate is merely a last-ditch attempt by liberal media spin-doctors to legitimize a government expansion at the expense of the Constitution, interstate commerce, and the freedom and integrity of the several states and her citizens. The Republican party as a whole has never endorsed an individual mandate, nor should they. The Democratic party has positioned itself in every debate to depict government as the road to prosperity and security, all the while watching over the implosion of the U.S. postal service, the unending waste and want of entitlement programs, and an accelerating national debt which undermines consumer confidence, foreign investment, and fiscal solvency.