Obama Open To Individual Mandates But With Robust Hardship Protections

In an ABC interview that aired on Wednesday, President Barack Obama acknowledged that his thinking on an individual mandate for insurance coverage has "evolved" since the days of the campaign, when he routinely attacked his primary opponent, then Sen. Hillary Clinton, for the idea.

Later in the day, however, the White House spokesman Robert Gibbs stressed that Obama wasn't straying too far from his initial objections to required coverage, stressing that any mandate would have to include a "pretty stringent hardship waiver" for those individuals who could not pay for insurance.

Speaking at the Daily Press briefing, Gibbs acknowledged that Obama had done some rethinking on the mandate matter. The primary motive, he said, was that major stakeholders in the debate would not support any compromise proposal that did not require the vast majority of 49 million uninsured Americans to be brought into the pool of consumers.

"As the process moves forward in the Senate and the House the president wants to be flexible to the degree to which a piece of legislation will come forward," Gibbs said. "In terms of ensuring that everyone is covered, the president is now open to this idea. I think ... with all the parties and stakeholders involved, there has been discussion that it would be hard to get everyone at the table to stay at the table, if you are not getting that larger universe of people covered."

The remarks cap what has been a gradual, but widely predicted, move by the White House. During the campaign, the president stressed that an individual mandate would be overly burdensome to families who could not afford the costs. But on Wednesday, the president told ABC's Diane Sawyer, "People have made some pretty compelling arguments to me that if we want to have a system that drives down costs for everybody, then we've got to have healthier people not opt out of the system," said Obama.

Adding a bit of meat to the bones, Gibbs said on Wednesday that the president's original concern had not changed and that he would press for additions to the mandate to protect financially vulnerable consumers.

"If the help that they are getting is still not sufficient enough for them to afford it," Gibbs said, "we have to examine a robust hardship waiver."

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Comments

[Chaimirija]

After passing health care reforms in the mid-1990s, Massachusetts residents now face one of the most expensive health insurance markets in the country.

Why? Because they did not bother to reform the industry first

[Chaimirija]

Do you want to pay 16% of your middle class income in premiums? The Swiss do.

[KQuark]

Nobody is proposing anything like the Swiss system.

[Chaimirija]

Ummm....it is an individual mandate....and they voted for it, too!

[joetherealist]

Wrong.

"These are tied to income such that no citizen is expected to pay more than 10% of his or her income on premiums"

http://healthcare.change.org/blog/view/swiping_ideas_from_the_swiss

[Chaimirija]

for the basic

[Chaimirija]

and what percentage of the population is subsidized? how does it save money when the govt is paying the insurers and you are paying the insurers?

[unbozo]

Any mandate is devolved and not evolved IMHO and I shall vote according to my convictions in the next elections. Whoa until a Democrat that votes for mandates or against public option.

[lvogt]

You need young heathy people along with the older sicker people to make it work.
Mandating private insurance policies for everyone is a huge boon to the insurance companies.
Take profit out of healthcare. Profit and care are set in direct opposition in a for-profit system. It's as wrong and ineffective as having a private fire department. Create a single gov't run policy and all the doctors and hospitals negotiate fees as independent businesses. No one should be in medicine to get rich on the suffering of others. They should be well and fairly compensated but the primary concern of the system should be for patients.

[KrugnacTheMagnificent]

Insurers aren't the primary profiteers in our health care system. Major insurers run overhead of about 8%. Since Medicare costs 2-3%, the private insurers are adding a mere 5% to the overall cost.

Trial lawyers add about 30% through fear of litigation and Defensive Medicine. Why not start there?

The for profit hospitals, for profit doctors, medical device manufacturers, and pharmaceutical companies all take out more than 5% profit from the system.

This fixation on insurance reform is puzzling, since it leaves all the biggest offenders untouched.

I sincerely hope that it's simply based on ignorance, and that once people learn a bit more about the health care system they will abandon it, or at least put it in the proper context and demand other reforms as well.

[Chaimirija]

I don't think it is puzzling at all...btw, should people learn too much, they would!

[mikefina]

Why not do the same thing to the legal profession? Why should lawyers be 'in it to get rich'? Or entrepenuers? Why should Google get paid for its search? Why not force Sergey Brin to just give his service away?

If you get to pick and choose who gets to 'get rich', then why can't anyone else pick their own pet constituency to benefit--or emasculate?

You don't get to police motives for people doing legal things--like practicing medicine. You don't.

You can exclude them (or they exclude themselves) from govt. options based on rates charged, but no more of your nonsense:

> No one should be in medicine to get rich on the suffering of others. They should be well and fairly compensated but the primary concern of the system should be for patients.

That is just totally bogus...

[patricksmom]

No matters of life and death in healthcare should be based purely on profit. No heart or brain coming from such drones.

[luckynewman13]

*due

[luckynewman13]

With all do respect Mr. President

F#%K YOU!

[Chaimirija]

Not so fast. If the truth about how individual mandates is brought forth, it should be easy to debate away. It doesn't lower costs, it raises them. Look to Massachusetts and the Swiss.

[fedupwiththis]

This is not the change we worked so hard for Mr. President. We wanted you to change Washington not the other way around. I have been a consistent contributor to the Democratic Party and I was a contributor to Barrack Obama's campaign. As long as there is any chance of any of my money going to the likes of Nelson and Conrad the Party gets none of it. Unless the President comes through on SOMETHING in the next three years he can forget about my support as well. He has a huge majority in the House a majority in the Senate and extremely positive rating with the public. Screw bipartisanship, we need some action. Follow through on at least some of your campaign rhetoric.

[nogimmicks]

The Republicans are pushing for the status quo under which the healthcare is terribly overprised, mediocre quality (child mortality and other parameters), partial, and most of the money go the bankers with salaries of over 20 million dollar a year. The Republicans are the worst.

But, unfortunately, Obama is too weak, both personally and because of the corrupt Democrats in Congress and Senate. He just gives in to the destructive special interests every single time.

[getsit]

For the last 20 years I have worked with families who have health insurance. Insurances are choosing who to cover, dropping policies, rationing benefits, raising premiums, and certainly not covering if you can't pay the premium (so if you get sick, good luck and goodbye).

Over the years the cost of insurance has shot through the roof and benefits have to be fought for. Those of you who want to opt out of healthcare, so would prefer no mandates to buy insurance, aren't thinking this through. The word is "insurance". Like car insurance, it is supposed to be there when you need it. Some people drive their cars their whole lives without an accident. Some people live their whole lives without needing a lot of medical services. The more the cost is spread throughout the population the less expensive it is for everyone.

We really need one payor. At the very least we need a low cost public plan to compete with private plans . The insurance companies are not in business for your health but their own profit. The politicians who are listening to these insurance companies are NOT listening to their constiuents.

For the first time in my life I am thinking of not voting democrat. I voted for Senator Feinstein in all her senate runs. I haven't been happy with some of her stands in the past but now I'm angry. She needs to show some backbone and listen to the people who VOTED for her.

[KrugnacTheMagnificent]

We don't have single payer car insurance, why would we need it for health care?

The reason insurance premiums are skyrocketing is because the underlying health care costs are skyrocketing. If it was simply the insurance overhead, then Medicare wouldn't be facing imminent insolvency today.

Even at 2% overhead, Medicare is going broke because it's forced to operate in the same for-profit health care system that is driving up costs for the private insurers.

[Chaimirija]

an interesting point...ya gotta love how this was lost in the enitre debate. And, so, with the mandate, the health care industry and the insurance industry are bailed out!

[getsit]

In many states car insurance is mandated. My point was the nature of insurance. If the health insurance companies could be relied on to provide care at a reasonable rate the only issue would be those who have no health insurance because they can't pay for it. This is why we need government oversight and regulations. Single payor does not mean just one governmental insurance plan. It could mean that the government contracts with the insurance companies with oversight and regulations to make sure we are getting the care. We and our employers pay into the system. If we could only rely on the insurance companies not to gouge the government like they are with Medicare.

[KQuark]

Why doesn't H P or other progressives investigate how much money the MSM is getting from bi g pha rma and profitcare? Maybe H P gets big money from profitcare. I simple don't know.

Why am I the only one who's disgusted that the MSM used all of Frank Luntz talking points yesterday when questioning the president on public healthcare?

The MSM is obviously the en emy in this fight.

Part of winning a fight is know who are our allies, our en emies and are sympathetic to our cause.

We need to stop dividing our efforts and being manipulated by the en emy.

It's proper to post what legislators are getting from profitcare be we need to find out how much the MSM is getting from profitcare as well.

[BillMelater]

Mandated insurance should not be forced upon employers. All this will do is make US workers less competitive with the rest of the world. The move should be to cover everybody and remove employers from having to pay for healthcare insurance.

The only way that makes sense to do all of this is single payer. Single payer wherein the costs are covered by taxes.

[ChelseaC]

BillMelater,
You're so right.
Well said.

[YewNeekId]

At least with Bush you knew he was an d/ickweed from the get-go, so you didn't expect anything else. But Obama turns his back on more of his supporters on more issues every day

[ChelseaC]

Sadly, I agree.

[romirom777]

No...you turned your back! He's working! When was the last time you seen a president this involved in so many issues? And working for the peoples future not the NOW!

[KrugnacTheMagnificent]

Plenty of health, young people contribute to Medicare. It's still broke.

Socializing the insurance without reforming the underlying health care system is like socializing the gas stations without reforming Exxon or O.P.E.C.

Utterly pointless.

[Chaimirija]

I know.

[BillMelater]

The reason Medicare is broke is because Congress uses the money for other things.

If we had a single payer option set up similar to Medicare, this would have to be outlawed. Congress should not be able to tap into the health care reserve.

[Lyr]

This is why I do not trust the government. They cannot be counted to keep thier word.

[KrugnacTheMagnificent]

Sadly, no.

We're already paying back money that has been borrowed this year, since Medicare is now in permanent structural deficits.

Even AFTER we pay back every dime borrowed, with interest, Medicare still goes insolvent by 2017. That's less than 8 years.

[KQuark]

Everyone must fight for public healthcare.

Last call to sign Dr. Dean's petition.

http://standwithdrdean.com/

Contact the white house and the congress with emails and phone calls.

http://standwithdrdean.com/where_congress_stands?chamber=&party=&state=&hc_status=&commit=Filter

Sign Bernie Sanders' single payer petition.

http://sanders.senate.gov/petitions/index.cfm?uid=7fd59f2e-88e1-477a-8eaf-762a5b050809

Sign Durbin's, Leahy's and Schumer's petition for a public plan.

http://ga3.org/campaign/healthpetition?source=hc_ty

Send faxes to push single payer with the white house, relavent committees and now your own congress people with HealthJustice's free faxes. You can actually customize your faxes to say whatever you want now.

http://www.1payer.net/action-alerts/send-a-free-efax-to-policymakers.html

http://ga1.org/campaign/singlepayer

If you can be there this Thursday in Washington to fight for healthcare reform.

http://www.1payer.net/rally/volunteers/add

The only non option is to do nothing.

Thank you.

[ChelseaC]

Hi KQ!
Thanks for the list!

[KQuark]

Hey how are you doing?

[KQuark]

You'll see some changes in the 1payer faxes that you can send now. You can automatically send them to your congress people and edit your story now.

[Marcospinelli]

For the umpteenth time, HOWARD DEAN DOES NOT SUPPORT SINGLE PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE!

[ChelseaC]

Dean supports a public option.
But Bernie Sanders is THE MAN!
He is fighting for single payer--he is a true man of the people.
http://sanders.senate.gov

[PaxEterna]

We don't have time for Mr. Change to evolve.

He is being totally idiotic on this issue.

[enoughalready13]

Agreed. Evolved is synonym for sellout.