Fix Health Care Policy

Later today, The Heritage Foundation (with five other organizations and former Senator George LeMieux) will file an amicus brief in the Supreme Court in the Obamacare case that challenges the mandate requiring all individuals to purchase an inflated health insurance policy designed to subsidize other terrible policies in the 2,500-page bill.

Heritage previously published a detailed analysis on why the individual mandate is unconstitutional, and that paper is cited in our brief. But since the parties are making the central constitutional arguments, the joint amicus brief the Heritage is joining focuses on three other points that help create a framework for consideration of those constitutional issues.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: amicus brief, constitutional arguments, health insurance policy, Individual Mandate, Supreme Court

Is the individual mandate at the heart of “ObamaCare” a conservative idea? Is it constitutional? And was it invented at The Heritage Foundation? In a word, no.

The U.S. Supreme Court will put the middle issue to rest. The answers to the first and last can come from me. After all, I headed Heritage’s health work for 30 years. And make no mistake: Heritage and I actively oppose the individual mandate, including in an amicus brief filed in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, the myth persists. ObamaCare “adopts the ‘individual mandate’ concept from the conservative Heritage Foundation,” Jonathan Alter wrote recently in The Washington Post. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews makes the same claim, asserting that Republican support of a mandate “has its roots in a proposal by the conservative Heritage Foundation.” Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and others have made similar claims.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: amicus brief, health insurance, Individual Mandate, ObamaCare, Supreme Court