Fact Sheet: Obama vs. Gingrich on Healthcare (by ContraSuggest)

For years, Newt supported the individual mandate that would require, under penalty of a fine, all citizens to purchase some form of health care insurance.  It was a stupid thing to have advocated, but he has publically admitted that it was a mistake and has since changed his position.  Rick Santorum, who happens to be a very good conservative candidate, greatly exaggerates when he points out that Newt’s former stance on individual mandate would preclude him from effectively critiquing Obamacare.  Newt was one of the leaders in the fight to stop Obamacare’s predecessor: Hillarycare.  The health care proposals put forth by Gingrich in the past have been consistent, with the sole exception of individual mandate; the rest of the measures that he called for were designed to empower the free-market, not the federal government, which is the antithesis of Obamacare.  I have bulleted out the main points below so readers can decide for themselves.  Newt has never supported any of the other disastrous measures that make up Obamacare, such as:

• The creation of at least two-dozen new bureaucratic, taxing and regulating offices, councils, groups, and programs
• Gauging “comparative effectiveness,” which will bring about rationing, ill-health, and in some cases, death
• Trillions of dollars worth of tax increases on nearly every aspect of the health care industry; costs that will either be paid by or passed onto consumers
• A $500 billion cut in Medicare
• Total exclusion of medical malpractice reform
• A legislative pogrom against insurance companies
• Bribes, payoffs and threats to coerce legislators into voting for a bill that the public did not support; dirty machine politics on an order of magnitude that was shocking (even by sleazy Washington standards!)

Gingrich offers these solutions, absent the individual mandate:

• Elimination of waste and fraud that costs taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars per year.  Medicare fraud is largely enabled by the current paper-based system of billing and record keeping; implementation of electronic third-party liability verification and payment would save billions.  Similarly, as 90% of all medical claims are paid by printing paper checks that are delivered by mail, transitioning to electronic payment would save an estimated $11 billion a year       
• Reform the bureaucratic disaster that is the FDA by streamlining the process of approving new drugs and treatments by relying on true scientific applications rather than endless analysis via bureaucratic red tape
• Extending the same favorable tax treatment enjoyed by those covered under employer provided plans to individuals who purchase their own health insurance
• Encourage health plan portability and competition in the free-market by repealing the laws that prevent insurance companies from doing business across state lines
• Allow small businesses to band together and form associations, enabling them to purchase less expensive employee insurance plans
• Give taxpayers access to the healthcare data (not privileged patient information) that their money has allowed the government to compile, allowing them to be better-educated, healthier consumers
• Encourage preventative rather than acute care by reforming the Medicare doctor reimbursement equation.  Currently, doctors only get paid for office visits; not, for instance, counseling patients via phone or e-mail regarding healthy behavior, how to lower their drug costs, or how to comparison cost shop online
• Encourage a private-sector-led best-practice initiative that educates the health care industry regarding documented, evidence-based best practices that work and will promote massive cost savings
• Empower states to better manage their Medicaid programs, because they better understand the health care needs of their citizens than do Washington pols

Moderate Mittsy Wins Florida and Nevada; Gingrich Campaign Floundering (by ContraSuggest)

Newt’s debate performances have clearly had a bearing on his caucus and primary showings.  The cycle is now familiar: low poll numbers, followed by great debate performances are followed by better than expected primary showings.  The same linkage proved to hold in Florida; unfortunately for Gingrich, after winning upwards of ten Republican presidential debates in a row, he finally had two consecutive poor showings just prior to the Sunshine State tally.  Not to mention the fact that Newt was besieged by zillions of dollars worth of negative attack ads.  Moderate Mittsy took it to Gingrich hard during the CNN encounter on 1/26, scoring multiple debating points.  Gingrich seems to be in a weird place right now.  For some reason he thinks he can release media adds ripping Mittsy without having to defend the charges in detail during the course of the debates.  Newt seems to have lost his stomach for the hand-to-hand combat required to back up the anti-Mitt charges put forth in his ads.  He must understand that if he’s going to make scathing criticisms of an opponent, then he needs to get his facts straight and stick to his guns, if not, then keep his trap closed.  He looked exhausted, and lately, less capable of delivering the impassioned, eloquent and forceful anti-liberal-establishment flurries that have electrified debate audiences and gained him the respect and support of Republican primary voters.  My advice to Newt: after Florida and Nevada, take a few days off to recharge your batteries, watch a recording of the CNN debate, like a boxer watches a fight that he’s lost, pinpoint your weaknesses and come to the next debate loaded for bare.  Stop whining about Mttsy’s negative ads and start defending yourself against them.  If you can’t take this kind of pounding, what the hell will you do against Obama’s leftist mafia?  You’d better toughen-up and revert back to the winning strategy you employed in South Carolina before it’s too late!      

Now some advice for Governor Blake Carrington: get a life you big phony!  Were you kidding when you said that your investment in Freddie Mac is not hypocritical, after flaying Newt for accepting paychecks from them?  Oh wait; your zillions are invested in a blind trust, which, of course, makes it all better.  So let me get this straight Thurston, if it was discovered that you were invested in a Guatemalan teen-prostitution ring, you could escape criticism by simply saying your money was in a blind trust?  What a total crock!  If there are certain types of enterprises that a beneficiary does not want to be invested in due to ethical objections, then his money should not be in a truly blind trust.   The point here is that Mittsy’s ethical objections are ad-hoc; his outrage at Newt for earning money from Freddie Mac, manufactured.  By the way Mittsy, contrary to the tortured logic you plied at the CNN debate, holding securities issued by Freddie Mac, means that you’re profiting each time you collect a dividend; I guess you don’t consider it dirty money when it’s lining your golden pockets, you big fraud.  By the way, remember when you said that Teddy Kennedy’s use of blind financial trusts was nothing more than a “ruse.”  Your flip-flopping is absurd, and you are beyond pathetic.  Meanwhile, the executors of your “blind” trust are your buddies over at Bain Capital; I’m sure you have absolutely no idea where any of that money is invested.  Sure.     

Your anti-Newt campaign ads are so unprincipled that you have lured your opponent (to his own discredit) into the mud with you.  One of your ads has the unmitigated gall to call Newt’s emotional stability into question!  Why don’t you just accuse him of spending two days a week in a straight jacket at Belleview hopped-up on Thorazine?  You’re so clueless that when the subject of another depraved ad was brought up during the debate, you questioned whether or not it was one of yours, only to have moderator Wolf Blitzer later embarrass you by confirming that it was.  You are such a putz; if you win this nomination Obamao will destroy you.    

Although I agree with many commentators that the low blows being leveled by both Gingrich and Mittsy are not adding any substance to the dialog, I still assign most of the blame to Mittsy.  It was Newt that resolved himself to only attacking Obama in the early stages of the campaign, running a positive campaign, and even repeatedly praising his opponents.  When this positive strategy of presenting innovative ideas led to higher poll numbers, Mittens and his super PAC nuked Gingrich with millions in negative ads.  On the subject of real substance, Senator Santorum simply kicked Mittsy’s ass up and down the stage when he pointed out that the author of Romneycare could not possibly make an effective case against Obamacare.  There are far more substantive similarities to the two plans then there are differences.  In a general election, the voting public will not be able to make a clear enough distinction between the two, thus greatly strengthening Oblabla’s Achilles’ heel and nullifying any attacks on Mittsy’s part.  Primary voters really need to rethink their support of Moderate Mittens.