Needless to say, Ken Kookinelli wouldn't agree with Newt Gingrich - or with the many other (large majority of?) conservatives who, over the years, have (strongly) supported the individual mandate for health insurance. But sorry, Ken, you're wrong and Newt's right. Listen and learn, as Newt Gingrich - in his previous incarnation, prior to his run for the Loony Tunes Party presidential nomination, as a serious, sane human being - explains why the individual mandate is fundamentally conservative, moral, and absolutely necessary.
I think you've got to require everybody to either have insurance or to post a bond. But the fastest growing section of the uninsured is people over $75,000 income, who are making a calculated gamble that if they get sick, you'll take care of them. And I think that's just immoral...I understand the libertarian argument that says, well, if somebody really would rather run the risk of dying; that's not gonna happen! So what's gonna happen is you're not gonna take care of yourself, you're gonna be in a motorcycle accident or a car wreck or you're gonna have a stroke, we're gonna go to extraordinary measures to take care of you, you're gonna turn out to have no insurance, and then given your attitude you're gonna try to avoid paying...
Any further questions? Good, I'm glad to see that Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi all agree on something! :)
P.S. Also, here's Newt in 2006, arguing that "our goal should be 100% insurance coverage for all Americans," that "we agree strongly with this principle [of the individual mandate]," and that "[t]he health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system."
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