Yes, Many Republicans Supported Obamacare All Along

Many of us have taken it for granted that all Republicans would work for full repeal of Obamacare.  After all, not a single Republican voted for it.  However, it is always important to understand the reasons why politicians support or oppose a piece of legislation.

When you listen to many prominent Republicans voicing their disdain for Obamacare, you generally hear the following complaints: it raises taxes, it cuts Medicare, it contains death panels, it is 2,700 pages long – and most notably – the individual mandate.

The problem is that these are all ancillary to the crux of what is so offensive about Obamacare.  The overarching concern about Obamacare is that it harnesses the factors that have already driven up the cost of healthcare and health insurance, most prominently, the mandates and subsidies, and multiplies them to the nth degree.  The tax increases, Medicare cuts, and individual mandate are merely tools to fund those interventions.  Many Republicans never had a problem with them.  This is why they were never repulsed by Romneycare, which doesn’t contain tax hikes and Medicare cuts.  As for the individual mandate of MassCare, they contend that there is nothing wrong with a state mandate.

As such, it comes as no surprise to read these tidbits in Politico:

If the law is partially or fully overturned they’ll draw up bills to keep the popular, consumer-friendly portions in place — like allowing adult children to remain on parents’ health care plans until age 26, and forcing insurance companies to provide coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Ripping these provisions from law is too politically risky, Republicans say. […]

On Tuesday, the major options were discussed during a small closed meeting of House Republican leaders, according to several sources present.

Then on Wednesday, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) gave the entire House Republican Conference a preview of where the party is heading. His message: “When the court rules, we’ll be ready.”

But Boehner warned that they’ll relegislate the issue in smaller, bite sizes, rather than putting together an unwieldy new health care bill.

“If all or part of the law is struck down, we are not going to repeat the Democrats’ mistakes,” Boehner said, according to several sources present. “We have better ideas on health care — lots of them. We have solutions, of course, for patients with pre-existing conditions and other challenges.”

If Politico was the only source promulgating this, I wouldn’t be worried.  Unfortunately, top GOP leaders have expressed their desire to keep the slacker and pre-existing mandates in place on numerous occasions.  This sentiment has also been evident in the GOP’s partial repeal strategy in which they target the most “unpopular provisions.”  These mandates are emblematic of the worst provisions in the law – the ones that will drive up the cost of private insurance and force everyone into government-run healthcare.

I’ve long struggled with the question of whether Republicans lack a full understanding of the free market or whether they simply lack the communication skills and fortitude to articulate free market positions to the public.  I suspect that with most members there are elements of both.

Boehner is definitely correct is asserting that we should not make the same mistake as the Democrats by offering all our conservative reforms in one shot.  We obviously cannot expand HSAs, enact tort reform, institute premium-support Medicare, reform Medicaid, and eliminate all the insurance mandates in one bill.  But whatever piece-meal approach we take must reflect a conservative free market view, and it must only take place after full repeal of Obamacare, especially of the slacker and pre-existing conditions mandates.  It is better to give out pure subsidies to the real sick for healthcare than to destroy the entire system with the paradoxical pre-existing insurance mandate.

We better pray that the Supreme Court rules in our favor on severability and strikes down the entire law.

View the original article here

Re: Santorum speaks at Supreme Court about Obamacare

Santorum made a strong case yesterday at the steps of the Supreme Court that Romney cannot make the case against Obamacare in the general election since Romneycare was the blueprint for Obamacare. What a great move by Santorum on the first day that Obamacare is in the Supreme Court. I think for the first time his message that Romney is uniquely disqualified on this issue is getting heard by a much larger audience. Even with the bulls–t comment a couple of days ago, that was the argument he was making.

This one issue has now become his central issue, and it couldn’t be at a better time. Let’s hope people in Wisconsin are listening:

View the original article here

Re: Santorum speaks at Supreme Court about Obamacare

Santorum made a strong case yesterday at the steps of the Supreme Court that Romney cannot make the case against Obamacare in the general election since Romneycare was the blueprint for Obamacare. What a great move by Santorum on the first day that Obamacare is in the Supreme Court. I think for the first time his message that Romney is uniquely disqualified on this issue is getting heard by a much larger audience. Even with the bulls–t comment a couple of days ago, that was the argument he was making.

This one issue has now become his central issue, and it couldn’t be at a better time. Let’s hope people in Wisconsin are listening:

View the original article here

Re: Santorum speaks at Supreme Court about Obamacare

Santorum made a strong case yesterday at the steps of the Supreme Court that Romney cannot make the case against Obamacare in the general election since Romneycare was the blueprint for Obamacare. What a great move by Santorum on the first day that Obamacare is in the Supreme Court. I think for the first time his message that Romney is uniquely disqualified on this issue is getting heard by a much larger audience. Even with the bulls–t comment a couple of days ago, that was the argument he was making.

This one issue has now become his central issue, and it couldn’t be at a better time. Let’s hope people in Wisconsin are listening:

View the original article here

Re: Santorum speaks at Supreme Court about Obamacare

Santorum made a strong case yesterday at the steps of the Supreme Court that Romney cannot make the case against Obamacare in the general election since Romneycare was the blueprint for Obamacare. What a great move by Santorum on the first day that Obamacare is in the Supreme Court. I think for the first time his message that Romney is uniquely disqualified on this issue is getting heard by a much larger audience. Even with the bulls–t comment a couple of days ago, that was the argument he was making.

This one issue has now become his central issue, and it couldn’t be at a better time. Let’s hope people in Wisconsin are listening:

View the original article here

Re: Santorum speaks at Supreme Court about Obamacare

Santorum made a strong case yesterday at the steps of the Supreme Court that Romney cannot make the case against Obamacare in the general election since Romneycare was the blueprint for Obamacare. What a great move by Santorum on the first day that Obamacare is in the Supreme Court. I think for the first time his message that Romney is uniquely disqualified on this issue is getting heard by a much larger audience. Even with the bulls–t comment a couple of days ago, that was the argument he was making.

This one issue has now become his central issue, and it couldn’t be at a better time. Let’s hope people in Wisconsin are listening:

View the original article here

Re: Santorum speaks at Supreme Court about Obamacare

Santorum made a strong case yesterday at the steps of the Supreme Court that Romney cannot make the case against Obamacare in the general election since Romneycare was the blueprint for Obamacare. What a great move by Santorum on the first day that Obamacare is in the Supreme Court. I think for the first time his message that Romney is uniquely disqualified on this issue is getting heard by a much larger audience. Even with the bulls–t comment a couple of days ago, that was the argument he was making.

This one issue has now become his central issue, and it couldn’t be at a better time. Let’s hope people in Wisconsin are listening:

View the original article here

Re: Santorum speaks at Supreme Court about Obamacare

Santorum made a strong case yesterday at the steps of the Supreme Court that Romney cannot make the case against Obamacare in the general election since Romneycare was the blueprint for Obamacare. What a great move by Santorum on the first day that Obamacare is in the Supreme Court. I think for the first time his message that Romney is uniquely disqualified on this issue is getting heard by a much larger audience. Even with the bulls–t comment a couple of days ago, that was the argument he was making.

This one issue has now become his central issue, and it couldn’t be at a better time. Let’s hope people in Wisconsin are listening:

View the original article here

Re: Santorum speaks at Supreme Court about Obamacare

Santorum made a strong case yesterday at the steps of the Supreme Court that Romney cannot make the case against Obamacare in the general election since Romneycare was the blueprint for Obamacare. What a great move by Santorum on the first day that Obamacare is in the Supreme Court. I think for the first time his message that Romney is uniquely disqualified on this issue is getting heard by a much larger audience. Even with the bulls–t comment a couple of days ago, that was the argument he was making.

This one issue has now become his central issue, and it couldn’t be at a better time. Let’s hope people in Wisconsin are listening:

View the original article here

Open Thread: SEIU’s Astroturf Paid $20 To Protest For ObamaCare Outside SCOTUS

As you watch the video below [via SEIU Monitor], you can tell the astroturf protesters bused in by the SEIU yesterday to protest outside the Supreme Court for ObamaCare hold some very deep convictions. In fact, their convictions run so deep, it seems all they care about is the $20 given to them in brown envelopes by their union handlers.

Ironically, as SEIU Monitor points out, back when ObamaCare was being debated in 2009, the SEIU published “Your Guide to Corporate Astroturfing: Lobbyist-Run Groups Orchestrating…”

Of course, unions and hypocrisy are somewhat synonymous, aren’t they?

Related:

Consider this an open thread.

__________________

“Socialism has no place in the hearts of those who would secure the fight for freedom and preserve democracy.” Samuel Gompers, American Federation of Labor, 1918

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The post-apocalyptic future of Obamacare?

At least, "post-apocalyptic" from the Left's point of view.

So I watched this clip of James Carville furiously spinning the suddenly-more-plausible possibility of Obamacare going down utterly in flames as being the most awesome thing ever for Democrats:

By the way: I should ask Erick how he manages to avoid pointing and laughing at performances like this. I don’t know that I could manage the same self-control.

Anyway, Allahpundit watched the clip, too, and he’s got a legitimate question about whether Carville is correct and that this would be ultimately good for Democrats. The answer is… if it is, not in the sense that everybody is meaning. Except maybe James Carville: he’s clever enough to give out the wrong reasoning in public.

The basic argument being presented here is, as far as I can tell, that killing Obamacare will at least rally the base, bringing them back to the polls just in time to recreate the energy and dedication that got elected Barack Obama in 2008. The President will go out and convince the American people that the Supreme Court slapping down Obamacare means that it’s now the Republicans’ problem to solve. That, and the judicious choosing and pushing of individually popular features of Obamacare will put the Democrats back over the top, and did you catch all the hidden assumptions that I loaded into this paragraph?

Let’s unpack ‘em:

First: note that casual equation of ‘rally the base’ with ‘recreate the 2008 Obama voter demographic.’ Not really justified. Obama won in 2008 because he won independents 52/44 and moderates 60/39. This recent CNN poll suggests the problem then for the Democrats; in that poll independents oppose Obamacare 41/53, moderates only support it 52/41… and liberals only 63/26. This means that ‘rallying the base’ is a prerequisite not for ‘winning the election,’ but rather for ‘avoiding losing the election by a catastrophic it not apocalyptic margin.’Second: the President. Convincing people. Or anything. This would be President Obama, right? The joke has long been among the VRWC that one of best things that can be done to further one of our policy positions is to con Barack Obama into making a speech about it: the man has no judgement and no demonstrated ability to learn from his mistakes. And he’s notoriously bad at convincing people to go into a direction that those people, in fact, do not wish to go.Third: that because some individual features of Obamacare are popular, arguing that they’ll go away with the larger law will be a powerful driver of votes. Because, after all, noting that stopped the Republicans from gaining 63 seats in the House and 7 in the Senate during the 2010 election cycle – no, wait, in point of fact it did not. Largely because the assertion can be fairly easily counter-argued, and in fact will be: if an individual feature is so popular, let the legislature go back and enact it. The true issue is the incredibly complex and disastrous-to-pernicious interrelated clauses, additions, add-ons, out-and-out bribes, and other detritus that was all swept up in one big messy pile and called Obamacare.

So… if Obamacare going down in flames isn’t good for letting Democrats win, then how will its destruction actually be good for Democrats? Easy: its destruction will wreck the political careers of both Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi (I wish that it’d also wreck Harry Reid’s career, but the Senate’s funny that way. Besides, Reid’s very possibly not running for another term in 2016 anyway). Because when you think about it; Obamacare’s pretty much the only thing that the Democrats have done that they even remotely want to talk about. It’s not that Obamacare is great – it’s actually awful – but everything else that they’ve done has been worse. When and if that goes away, the way that Obamacare goes away will hopefully make it clear in the process that the next Democratic Speaker of the House (and there will be one eventually: just not in 2012) should be someone who is nota San Franciscan liberal who treats the Speakership as if it was a crude, Stone Age club…

But I malign our primitive ancestors with that comparison: they worked with the best that they had.  It’s too frightening to even think that, when it comes to Democrats, so did Nancy Pelosi.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

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Here’s What The Court’s Going To Do On ObamaCare

It would be nice if the future of federalism did not rest on what Anthony Kennedy had for breakfast –- if Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell did not spend all of December, 2009, giving Harry Reid back-to-back votes on issues which allowed Reid to buy off swing senators.

But we are where we are. So…

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS ONE ARGUMENT STANDING ON BEHALF OF THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF OBAMACARE: 116 BILLION.

That is the amount of cost-shifting Obama now claims occurs as a result of treating uninsured individuals.

Four problems:

First, 116 billion is nothing but a politicized magnification of the amount (43 billion) which the insurance companies claimed in cost-shifting from the uninsured to policy-holders during their ObamaCare lobbying campaign. (The 43 billion figure is where the $1,000-per-policy cost-shifting figure comes from.) But both the 116 billion and the 43 billion figures are fraudulent numbers which interested parties simply pulled out of the air.

Second, the administration understands the inherent bias in insurance company numbers when it suits its purposes. When Price-Waterhouse, in the eve of the passage of ObamaCare, estimated that it would increase the price of family policies to almost $25,000 a year by 2019, the Obama administration mercilessly attacked the number. 116 billion -– or 43 billion -– or $1,000 per policy — is no different. In their hearts, the administration understands it is lying to the court.

Third, whatever cost-shifting problems there are, over 68% of them are due, not the “young invincibles,” who are nothing but, once again, hapless “cash cows” who are being bled to fund a system which transfers their assets to those who, in some cases because of their own choices, are less healthy than they are. Rather, current cost-shifting problems, to the extent they exist, are as a result of the poor. But here’s the problem: Under ObamaCare, the poor (anyone with an income under 133% of the poverty level) would be put on Medicaid — AND TURNED FROM DE FACTO “FREE RIDERS” INTO STATUTORILY MANDATED “FREE RIDERS.”

Which leads to: Fourth, everyone understands that the reason for the mandate was not to address the “free rider” problem (which could have much more easily been done by modifying the 1986 treatment mandate in minor ways), but rather to bribe the insurance companies into not running Harry & Louise ads.

NOW FOR A LITTLE LEGAL REALISM

The justices are only human.

And conservatives have fallen down in failing to make a bigger issue over liberal attempts to threaten and intimidate the court -– first, in the New York Times, then in the Washington Post [“Will Conservatives save Obamacare?” by Robert Barnes, the Washington Post, March 18, 2012, page B1] -– and repeatedly by Bob Beckel and others on Fox.

All of the threats are thinly veiled (“Roberts is protective of the court’s reputation, however, and sensitive to the perception that its decisions are politicized.”), but they are nothing more or less than disguised threats to attack the court if it doesn’t do as liberals want.

Interestingly, speaking of politicized justice, both the New York Times and the Washington Post, in their court “vote-counting,” start with the proposition that the four liberals on the court will “jump” when told to by the Obama administration. This is hardly a ringing endorsement of the independence or the judicial integrity of Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan.

True, Kennedy has shown, in Massachusetts v. EPA, that he is not oblivious to a firestorm of public opinion swirling around him. But, with Gallup showing that between 72% and 76% of the public believes ObamaCare is unconstitutional, and with other polls showing that 67% of Americans believe that either ObamaCare or the mandate is unconstitutional, liberals are making a threat which they can’t enforce.

And, lest anyone believe that liberals believe their vote-counting bravado, Friday, two Columbia Law professors [Abbe Gluck and Michael Graetz] published an op-ed in the New York Times arguing that, should the mandate be overturned by the court, the statute should nevertheless be severed. (More on this later, but what does that tell you about their assessment of the likelihood of success?)

They understand, as do most court-watchers, that there are legal realities which are never vocalized, but are true nonetheless:

WICKARD V. FILBURN DOESN’T REALLY GIVE YOU ANY CLUE ABOUT WHAT THE COURT WILL DO: This is the 1942 case where a farmer was penalized for growing wheat for his own consumption because, were everyone to do the same, it would impact commerce.

This is taught in law schools as a “can-you-believe-that?” case. It was the high water mark of politicized New Deal jurisprudence, and is now generally viewed by conservatives as the epitome of what was wrong with the Roosevelt court. And it would have to be extended even further to apply to someone who didn’t even grow wheat -– and, in fact, did nothing.

GONZALES V. RAICH DOESN’T REALLY GIVE YOU ANY CLUE ABOUT WHAT THE COURT WILL DO: This was the case about whether the federal government could preempt state laws on medical marijuana.

If you look at the way the court deals with “law-and-order” cases, it differs from its approach to other appeals. There was no way the court was going to, effectively, legalize all drugs in order to overturn Wickard. And the fact that it considered doing that tells you something.

THE FACT THAT THE COURT, IN THREE POLITICALLY DIFFICULT CASES, FAILED TO FIND A COMMERCE CLAUSE JUSTIFICATION FOR GUN-FREE SCHOOL ZONES, PARTS OF THE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT, AND PARTS OF THE BRADY LAW DOES TELL YOU SOMETHING ABOUT THE COURT’S -– AND KENNEDY’S -– PREDISPOSITION ON ARTICLE I, SECTION 8, ISSUES.

THREE OBSERVATIONS ON SEVERABILITY

THE FACT THAT THE COURT SET ASIDE AN HOUR TO ARGUE SEVERABILITY, WHILE NOT DISPOSITIVE, IS MORE SIGNIFICANT THAN LIBERALS WOULD LIKE TO BELIEVE.

NOTWITHSTANDING EVERYTHING, I WOULD BET THE COURT WOULD REMAND THE CASE FOR AT LEAST SOME OF THE SEVERABILITY DELIBERATIONS.

WANT TO KNOW WHY THE SEVERABILITY CLAUSE IN EARLIER DRAFTS “MYSTERIOUSLY” DISAPPEARED? I have gone round-and-around with both House and Senate Legislative Counsel over this issue. And one or the other will regularly remove severability language from a draft because, while not irrelevant, it is not dispositive. It is a way that the Leg Counsel’s office asserts its authority against congressmen who “dare” to draft their own legislation.

Of course, as the mandate became more controversial at the end of the process, senators did begin to notice that the severability clause had disappeared.

Had Jim DeMint not objected to waiving the nine-day process necessary to send a bill to conference, the severability clause could have been easily reinserted in conference. But he did; and it wasn’t.

Finally, there was the opportunity to reopen the bill to further amendments, including an amendment on the severability clause, to assuage Democratic moderates like Ben Nelson, after the manager’s amendment had been presented. But, again, this would have required chopping apart the “tree” constructed to block DeMint, and that would have kept the Senate in session until well past Christmas. So that wasn’t done either.

But the point for the court to consider is that senators knew they had an opportunity to reinsert the severability clause, but with considerable pain, and chose not to.

by Michael E. Hammond, former General Counsel Senate Steering Committee 1978-89 and a Dunbarton, New Hampshire resident.

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RomneyCare Inspires ObamaCare, But Not America

Two years ago, President Obama signed into law ObamaCare, his signature piece of  legislation.  As a direct result of that law’s unpopularity, Congressional Democrats suffered devastating defeats in the midterm election of 2010, losing more than sixty seats in the House.  It would be an understatement to say the President’s healthcare overhaul law is merely “unpopular.”  According to several recent polls, Americans still overwhelmingly oppose ObamaCare by a two-to-one margin.  Americans understand that not only is this the wrong solution to our healthcare needs and challenges, it is also an affront to freedom that makes our families’ health and country’s fiscal health more fragile.

The 2012 election should be an opportunity for Americans to elect a President committed to ObamaCare’s repeal and replacement with sound free-market competition.  But that is where this 2012 election has an unusual aspect.  The original architect of the Democrats’ unpopular healthcare law is himself also running for president on the GOP ticket.  Mitt Romney, one of the candidates in the race for the GOP nomination, authored and championed his own version of ObamaCare less than six years ago.

Over the past two years, Americans have learned more about ObamaCare and about the true impact of this law.  By the Democrats’ own stated objectives, the law has been an utter failure.  Democrats in Congress and President Obama made several claims about ObamaCare; they promised Americans that the law would bend the healthcare cost downward.  They also promised that it would be “budget neutral,” that it would achieve “universal coverage,” and that families would immediately see their health insurance costs decrease.  On each and every account, the law has failed.  Instead, public sector and private sector  health care costs are rising.  The Democrats’ “budget neutral” bill is, in reality, going to cost trillions of dollars more for American families, small businesses, and taxpayers.  And rather than reducing families’  health insurance costs, most Americans have  already seen their health insurance premiums rise. (And unions, businesses, and states alike are rushing to plead with the Obama Administration for waivers from the disastrous and partisan law.)

All of these side effects of ObamaCare were entirely foreseeable.  Anyone who has studied Massachusetts under RomneyCare could have predicted each of these problems.

Mitt Romney has been on the defensive for the past several weeks, trying to explain to GOP primary voters how his government takeover of health care in Massachusetts was somehow different than ObamaCare.  The task has proven incredibly difficult because the laws are, in numerous ways, identical.   Romney’s challenge to draw distinctions has been made even more difficult now that White House senior advisor David Plouff last week called Mitt Romney the “godfather” of ObamaCare.

It’s worth noting that the White House knows just how unpopular the health care law is, and they’re looking to share the blame with someone else.  After all, if Mitt Romney becomes the GOP nominee, the Obama Administration will have effectively neutralized the ObamaCare issue.

Mitt Romney, confronted by the reality that ObamaCare remains unpopular, has tried to manufacture distinctions between his healthcare law and the President’s.  Unfortunately, all of the major flaws of ObamaCare can be found in RomneyCare.

There are several key objections that conservatives have about ObamaCare.  And those objections equally apply to RomneyCare.  For limited-government conservatives, one of the most offensive aspects of ObamaCare is the “individual mandate.”  Conservatives. The National Federation of Businesses, and twenty-seven states rightly point out in their legal challenge considered this week by the Supreme Court that our government simply does not have the authority to require anyone to purchase something – whether it is health insurance or an American-made car, or anything else.  The Constitution grants very specific and clearly defined powers to Congress.  The authority to dictate particular purchases, thankfully, is not one of those powers.

But Mitt Romney’s views differ from those of most conservatives in this country.  He does believe that government – both at the state and at the federal level – possesses the right to dictate to individuals what they must purchase.  RomneyCare includes an individual mandate that functions exactly like ObamaCare’s individual mandate.  And, beyond that, Mitt Romney penned an Op-Ed in 2009 for USA Today, in which he encouraged President Obama to adopt his state’s individual mandate.  He boasted that the individual mandate is an effective way to encourage people to take responsibility for their own health care.  He never expressed any concerns about what an abuse of power it is for the federal government to take that action.  Classically for Mitt, his Op-Ed this past week in USA Today failed to mention that his Ted Kennedy embraced affront to freedom in Massachusetts punished businesses and families with fines that failed to comply with his big-government prescribed solution to the healthcare needs of citizens and pushed more people into taxpayer-financed Medicaid rolls.

While for both ObamaCare and RomneyCare, the central policy healthcare prescription is government coercion, rather than market-based incentives and choice, both ObamaCare and Romneycare failed to address the number one challenge for healthcare in America – rising costs.  Not only did they not address it, they exacerbated it for families, businesses, and taxpayers.  This is failed leadership.  It should not surprise us that a policy prescription for such an important issue produced such outcomes when driven primarily by Governor Romney and Democrats in Massachusetts and entirely by Barack Obama and Democrats in partisan fashion in Washington, D.C.  Massachusetts under Governor Romney had the highest healthcare premiums in the country and the growing burden of healthcare costs for our nation remains the primary long-term threat to our economic and fiscal future.

The 2012 election is about one central philosophic point: How big of a federal government do we want and is that where the solutions lie to the challenges that face America?  Do we share the Obama-Romney view that government possesses vast and broad powers to dictate anything it pleases?  Or do we prefer the view of our founding fathers and the authors of the Constitution?   Do we embrace the status quo, which is good for the establishment, but not good for America?  Or do we once again, correct our course, and embrace the inalienable rights endowed by our creator of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the pursuit of a better America?

A primary reason that I chose to run this election cycle is that I believe ObamaCare is an assault on America’s system of limited government.  I believe in American solutions to America’s challenges.  This is how we renew our economy and our prosperity.  Our founding fathers wisely designed a Constitution that protects individual liberty by limiting the scope and size of government.  Pretending that one will only be big government at the state level and not at the federal level, if given the opportunity, doesn’t pass the commonsense test for most Americans.  Unlike on Wall Street, in government, past performance does indicate future performance.  It’s also the best thing that voters have to go on.

The authors of the Constitution correctly understood that there is an inverse relationship between the size of government and individual liberty. ObamaCare is a dramatic departure from our tradition of limited government and needs to be stopped.   And, unfortunately, Mitt Romney does not offer a satisfying or credible alternative to the Democrats’ view of an ever-expansive government.  Unlike Governor Romney, I have successfully led on free-market solutions for our healthcare needs and challenges like health savings accounts and choice and competition in Medicare.  I have led the charge to end and reform entitlements, not to add to them.

President Obama would love for the Republican voters to neutralize this central issue in the 2012 debate about our vision for America and her future.  Let’s embrace freedom instead.

Rick Santorum, a former representative and senator from Pennsylvania, is a candidate for the Republican nomination for president. 

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