Flap’s Links and Comments for May 19th on 14:11

These are my links for May 19th from 14:11 to 14:16:

• Did Mitch Daniels Previously Support the Individual Mandate? – The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein highlighted today a passage from a 2003 news story which indicated that Mitch Daniels supported an individual health care mandate at the time. From the South Bend Tribune:

  The candidate [Mitch Daniels] said he favors a universal health care system that would move away from employee-based health policies and make it mandatory for all Americans to have health insurance.

  Daniels envisioned one scenario in which residents could certify their coverage when paying income taxes and receive a tax exemption that would cover the cost.

  “We really have to have universal coverage,” Daniels said.

  Under his plan, Daniels said, the nation could get away from the inefficient and unfair way in which health care is provided to those who are uninsured, many of whom end up in emergency rooms or “at clinics like this one.”

  Jane Jankowski, a spokeswoman for Daniels, said that the governor does not support an individual mandate.

   “Governor Daniels favors giving every American a tax credit individually so they can purchase insurance that is right for them,” Jankowski told National Review Online. “He believes nearly all would use it, so coverage would be nearly universal. He does not support a mandate.”

  Jankowski added that opposition to an individual mandate “has always has been the governor’s position.”

  ======

  Read it all….

  I believe the answer is no…

• Mitch Daniels’ Office On Health Care Reform: The Governor Is ‘Against The Mandate’ – Indiana Governor Mitch Daniel's office is downplaying, if not fully disregarding, a 2003 story that claims he favored requiring all Americans to purchase health service as a means of achieving universal coverage.

  "Governor Daniels is against a mandate," his spokesperson, Jane Jankowski, emailed the Huffington Post on Thursday afternoon."He favors giving every American a tax credit individually so they can purchase insurance that is right for them. He believes nearly all would use it, so coverage would be nearly universal."

  Jankowski's comments come hours after the Huffington Post highlighted a clip from Daniels' 2004 gubernatorial run that stated he supported the same type of compulsory insurance that Republicans have deemed an unconstitutional component of President Obama's health care law.

  The video provides yet another clear indication that a principle once popular in conservative circles — the individual mandate — has now become poisonous.

  Daniels has pursued other, less noteworthy policies similar to Obama's approach to health care law, including a tax on cigarettes as a means of generating revenue for health care coverage elsewhere and the expansion of Medicaid to individuals well above the poverty level.

  As for the broader components of reform, Jankowski sent over an excerpt from an interview Daniels gave to radio talk show host Michael Smerconish on Thursday:

  =====

  Read it all