Crush Liberalism

Night and Day, “Obama and individual mandates” edition

Back in 2008, when Candidate Obama was running against Her Highness Hillary, he slammed her for her plan requiring Americans to buy health insurance.  You know, the individual mandate?  Partial transcript below (video here for full context):

“Both of us want to provide health care to all Americans. There’s a slight difference, and her plan is a good one. But, she mandates that everybody buy health care. She’d have the government force every individual to buy insurance and I don’t have such a mandate because I don’t think the problem is that people don’t want health insurance, it’s that they can’t afford it,” Obama said in a Feb. 28, 2008 appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ television show. “So, I focus more on lowering costs. This is a modest difference. But, it’s one that she’s tried to elevate, arguing that because I don’t force people to buy health care that I’m not insuring everybody. Well, if things were that easy, I could mandate everybody to buy a house, and that would solve the problem of homelessness. It doesn’t.”

So yesterday, a federal judge ruled that Candidate Obama was correct: the feds can’t force somebody buy a product or service.  He even used Obama’s analogy from 2008 about mandating Americans buy a home:

In a ruling issued yesterday holding that the insurance mandate in Obamacare is unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson pointed to a similar statement that Obama had made in a Feb. 4, 2008 interview with CNN. “Indeed,” wrote Vinson, “I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that ‘if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house.’”

So how did the prez describe the judge that agreed with Candidate Obama?  Predictably:

“Today’s ruling – issued by Judge Vinson in the Northern District of Florida – is a plain case of judicial overreaching,” wrote Obama aide Stephanie Cutter on the White House web site.   “

The judge’s decision contradicts decades of Supreme Court precedent.”

Over at the Justice Department, officials made clear they would challenge the ruling immediately.

“We strongly disagree with the court’s ruling today and continue to believe – as other federal courts have found – that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional,” said a Justice Department statement.

In a conference call with reporters, senior administration officials went even further in their attacks, labeling the ruling “odd and unconventional” and “well out of the mainstream” – predicting it would not stand the scrutiny of higher courts.

Don’t you love it when moonbats try to tell Normal America what is and isn’t “outside the mainstream”? 

February 1, 2011 Posted by crushliberalism | big government, health care, Hillary, hypocrisy, Night and Day, Obama | 3 Comments