As everyone knows by now the individual responsibility requirement, the so-called mandate or the free-rider provision in the Affordable Care Act, was modeled after a similar provision in Governor Romney’s health care law in Massachusetts.  Obamacare is Romneycare.

The Supreme Court found the individual mandate in federal law to be constitutional. We are here today because Republicans want to discuss what it is called. Again, perhaps we should take linguistics lessons from Governor Mitt Romney. The New York Times reported last week, and I quote: “As the Massachusetts Governor and then as a presidential candidate, Mr. Romney spent the next six years describing in a variety of different ways the possible punishments for ignoring the Massachusetts mandate: as ‘free-rider surcharges,” “tax penalties,” “tax incentives” and sometimes just as “penalties.” 

The bottom line is whether you call it a fee, a penalty, a surcharge, an incentive or a tax – almost no one will have to pay it. That’s right – almost no one will have to pay it. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 1.4% of Americans will pay anything for refusing to purchase insurance.   And, that is just about identical to the percent of people in Massachusetts who have paid the penalty under Governor Romney’s health care law.

For most people the penalty will be about the cost of a health insurance plan – And, you know what?  People would rather have insurance. That’s what Mitt Romney thought.  Here is how he described the mandate:

Romney in June 2005: ''No more 'free riding,' if you will, where an individual says: 'I'm not going to pay, even though I can afford it. I'm not going to get insurance, even though I can afford it. I'm instead going to just show up and make the taxpayers pay for me,' …It's the ultimate conservative idea, which is that people have responsibility for their own care, and they don't look to government to take of them if they can afford to take care of themselves.”

Romney in April 2010: “Right now, in lots of parts of the country, if individuals do not have insurance, they can arrive at the hospital and be given free care, paid for by government. Our current system is a big-government system. A conservative approach is one that relies on individual responsibility. … But in my view, and others are free to disagree, expecting people who can afford to buy insurance to do so is consistent with personal responsibility, and that's a cornerstone of conservatism.”

And, it did not just start with Governor Romney. I would like to enter into the record the original Heritage Foundation report that introduced the concept of a mandate.  Bills with an individual responsibility provision have been cosponsored by Republicans for two decades.  You all can run, but you can’t hide.

You are trying to bloody the nose of something you were for, before you were against it.  And, you think you have found the right cudgel – the word “tax.”  But it is a cudgel that is only going to impact 1.4% of Americans who are free-riding off our health care system.

Republicans are also making another false claim that health reform is a massive tax increase for the middle class.  In truth, the new law is a massive tax cut for the middle class. The ACA includes over $800 billion in tax credits and subsidies for families earning less than 400 percent of poverty — about $92,000 for a family of four.  The ACA also provides over $20 billion in small business tax credits so that employers can provide health coverage to their employees.

What the Republicans are really doing this week is to try to repeal health care reform and protections against insurance company abuses.

That is the Republican agenda this week:

Repeal the pre-existing condition protection. 

Repeal the removal of annual and lifetime limits on benefits for the very sick. 

Repeal closing the prescription drug donut hole.

Repeal young adults staying on their parents insurance.

Repeal the cap on premium increases. 

Middle class families have enough to worry about these days as they struggle to recover from the worst Recession in decades.  Instead, of making it harder for them – by putting the insurance companies back in the driver’s seat of our health care system – this committee should be focused on moving forward, on passing jobs legislation that we can all agree upon to further accelerate our nation’s recovery.

###