So now that they are in charge, the GOP that has been demanding the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and which has been saying for7 years that they had a better plan, is now in a position do so, and has claimed they have come up with what they claim is that better plan.

You would think that they would have been working on a replacement plan all along, but they didn’t.

But for those not familiar with the history of the ACA genesis, and who the GOP knew would rather be told what it was all about as that would be easier than actually reading up on it, or finding out the facts, they dubbed it “Obamacare” so people would just hate it because of that name,  here’s a little history.

The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation is actually the creator of the health plan that conservatives objected to. The claim that that Obamacare was expensive, imposed new taxes, and trampled on individual liberty, didn’t seem to matter until Prident Obama proposed their plan.

With Obamacare, the conservative Heritage foundation had actually gotten what they had wanted since 1989,and what their acolytes would have praised if only one of the Bushes had proposed it.

Stuart Butler was the director of domestic policy research at Heritage, and he is the one who developed two central ideas in the Affordable Care Act: an individual mandate requiring that everyone had to purchase health insurance, and the  expansion of Medicaid coverage to the working poor.

In a 1989 lecture, and in a pamphlet conveniently no longer available, Butler had stated,

“Many states now require passengers in automobiles to wear seatbelts for their own protection. Many others require anybody driving a car to have liability insurance. But neither the federal government nor any state requires all households to protect themselves from the potentially catastrophic costs of a serious accident or illness. Under the Heritage plan, there would be such a requirement.”

What he was advocating was what is called “the individual mandate”.

Butler also said

“A new index of eligibility would be developed to link Medicaid coverage to poverty instead of welfare. This is an important distinction, because many poor families struggling to keep off welfare currently risk enormous and uncovered medical bills because they are not eligible, or do not seek, to go on to the welfare rolls”.

That is the Medicaid expansion that a number  of red states refused to allow because they just had to oppose “Obamacare”, and their action allowed them to claim the Act was a failure when, in fact, their decision was the failure.

To be clear, when Butler gave his lecture he called what he was advocating “the Heritage plan”.

In that plan, also, everyone would have to purchase his or her own health insurance using  a consumer-choice system in which the government set broad rules, which would result in the exchanges the GOP found great fault with under the ACA.

When Mitt Romney was putting together a state-level health reform plan in Massachusetts, he insisted that Heritage “helped us construct an exchange”.

Romney even pointed out that,

. “We got the idea of an individual mandate from [Newt Gingrich], and [Newt] got it from the Heritage Foundation.”

He also touted the importance of the individual mandate because it was

 “essential for bringing the health care costs down for everyone and getting everyone the health insurance they need.” 

TIA Stroke is commonly known as Transient Ischemic Attack; Heat Stroke is cheap levitra uk a form of sexual disorder not a disease hence one must go for this treatment. This condition entails a man’s incapability of attaining viagra online browse for info now penile hard on during lovemaking. Erectile dysfunction is been raised in a person when the flow of blood to the erection organs or to be very precise to the penis. purchase cheap cialis Exercise not only helps put off obesity, diabetes, levitra online over at this site and high blood pressure tend to suffer more acutely from erectile dysfunction. So what was favorable, when a Republican included them in a health plan, was objectionable, when a Democratic president proposed the same thing.

They just could not accept that the president might have proposed something that was successful even when it was their idea and he was in the position to propose it

They had to undermine it, even though it was their own fought for idea.

In 2011 when Obamacare was legally challenged, the Heritage Foundation fought it claiming its very own idea that was included in it was unconstitutional.  A big turnaround on an idea they had been pushing for 20 years until President Obama went with it.

While Democrats had been trying to attach  healthcare onto Social Security and Medicare, and pay for it through the payroll tax, Republicans claimed that any system must be based on private insurance and paid for with a combination of subsidies for low-income purchasers and a requirement that the younger and healthier sign up.

Private health insurers supported the Republican idea.

Back in 1974 President Richard Nixon, a Republican, had proposed that all but the smallest employers would provide insurance to their workers or pay a penalty, and Medicare-type programs should insure the poor with subsidies providing assistance to low-income individuals and small employers.

He was proposing Obamacare.

So when the GOP objects to the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act as the reason it needs to go, it should be remembered that it was their idea.

What’s ironic is that had Democrats stuck to the original Democratic vision and built comprehensive health insurance on Social Security and Medicare, it would have been cheaper, simpler, and more widely accepted by the public, and it would have been certain that the Republicans would have objected in favor of their idea.

But when the Democrats went with their idea, the Republicans complained about that anyway.

And one last bit of history.

Back in 1993 President Clinton had put his wife, Hillary, in charge of a task force that was to come up with a healthcare program. The task force was to find a way to deal effectively with rising health care costs and the growing number of uninsured families.

Republicans were not happy that Clinton had won while George HW Bush had not, and they would do anything to either show he should not be president, or at least insure that he would fail. It was the same attitude they expressed 16 years later when Obama won.

So when Clinton said he was working on a health care plan, they decided they needed to come up with one that was better and before he did.

Under John Chafee of Rhode Island they introduced the bill known as Health Equity and Access Reform Today (HEART) that included an individual mandate, the creation of purchasing pools, standardized benefits, vouchers for the poor to buy insurance, and a ban on denying coverage based on a pre-existing condition.

However it was never dealt with. Then, as in the past seven years, the GOP was more intent with making sure whatever Clinton proposed would not be accepted, and, although recognizing a need for health care reform, were less inclined to come up with it.

The GOP mislead its constituents so that they will gladly accept an alternative for what was best for themselves, and to make it easier to accept, the GOP will give it a name that they can wrap their arms around.

They will be hugging the plan whose look they like, while not noticing it is wearing an explosive suicide vest.