I found it interesting in your recent article on the House vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act to read that our Congressman David McKinley condemned the act's individual mandate, calling it a "massive tax."
Here are the facts Mr. McKinley doesn't want you to know. The mandate was the creation of a Republican think tank, the Heritage Foundation (see their 1989 report). In 1993, Congressional Republicans twice introduced bills to enact the mandate. During the most recent Bush administration, it was Republican Newt Gingrich who crisscrossed America promoting the mandate and in 2006, it was Republican Mitt Romney who first made the mandate law as governor of Massachusetts.
All this time the Republicans never referred to the mandate as a tax, but rather as a penalty on folks who can afford health coverage but prefer to let the rest of us pay for their care. President Obama included over 200 Republican proposals in the ACA, among these the mandate. And now we have Rep. McKinley condemning the president for enacting this Republican "tax."
The Republicans ruled the country for eight years under George W. Bush and only gave us the "donut hole." Where were their ideas on health care reform? Oh, I forgot, they gave us the mandate. And now they wave their magic wands to turn their "penalty" into President Obama's "tax."
Karen Campbell
Vienna
