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WaPo's Goldstein Suggests Insurance Industry Ideologically Conservative

By Ken Shepherd | December 15, 2010 | 17:29

A  A
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In an otherwise decent article in today's Washington Post, staffer Amy Goldstein suggested that the U.S. health insurance industry is ideologically conservative despite its support for the controversial and unconstitutional "individual mandate" provision of ObamaCare.

The relevant portion is found midway through her page A3 article, "Mandatory coverage moves to forefront of health-care debate":

The debate over whether the mandate is essential does not split neatly along ideological lines. The insurance industry, a part of the health-care system that the White House has vilified, shares the administration's view that the mandate must accompany other insurance rules in the law.

 

Of course,  the real reason the insurance industry backs the individual mandate is that it's good for their business. On some level, what industry group wouldn't mind a federal law requiring Americans to buy its products under penalty of law?

The ideological and more importantly constitutional question at play with the individual mandate has everything to do with limiting government from overreaching its constitutional bounds.

It has nothing to do with the economics of health care reform and everything to with the unconstitutional and immoral notion of forcing Americans to buy something from a private vendor under penalty of law.

True, the health insurance lobby has until recently been more sympathetic to the GOP than Democrats, but the political expediency of the relationship doesn't mean the insurance lobby has an ideological commitment to conservatism.

Reporters for major newspapers should know better than to confuse cynical rent-seeking enterprises with principled constitutional conservatives.

About the Author

Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters. Click here to follow Ken Shepherd on Twitter.
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The same health insurance industry...

Submitted by Phryj1 on Wed, 12/15/2010 - 6:57pm.

...that benefits overwhelmingly from the indiviual mandate? That helped write the "Affordable Care Act" and was it's biggest advocate? I mean, the individual mandate DID help get a bunch of Republicans elected, but that doesn't make the insurance industry conservative.

Not to mention that the smartest move by Republicans is to push to get rid of the individual mandate. As long as the Obama Administration keeps supporting it's implementation despite the wishes of the electorate, the Republicans have a clear path to taking the White House and making bigger gains in Congress. As long as Dems are committed to the dogma that health care reform is necessarily dependent on the individual mandate, they will happily hang themselves with it come November 2012.

Progressives seem to be completely averse to facts and logic. Apparently, reality has a conservative bias.

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Stop Censoring The Gosnell Trial!

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