Pawlenty is sometimes touted as a "conservative", but the more I learn about his record the less impressed I am. He is basically Romney without the fundraising prowness. Yes, he is better in that he doesn't have socialized medicine plan named after him, but that ain't saying much.

I wonder if NRO will link to this insightful video:
External Link 

Cap & Trade flip flopper Pawlenty was not only "open to" the individual mandate (ditto Romney's "Healthcare Exchanges") he signed into law the Omnibus Health & Human services Appropriations Bill which provided funds for the Health Care Transformation Task Force, a panel of healthcare experts charged with exploring ways to ensure that Minnesota develops a universal healthcare plan by 2011.

The problem isn't that Pawlenty changed his mind on the individual mandate, the real liability is that he is stubbornly denying that realty.

Pawlenty isn't the only one who has edorsed or defended the individual mandate i.e., conservative icon The Heritage Foundation (that originated the idea), WSJ, CATO Institute (press release 8/21/2007), Jim Demint, Rick Santorum (2008), Newt Gingrich (circa 1993-2008), Jon Huntsman, Mitch Daniels, Rick Perry (a "state's right to determine"), & Marco Rubio, among others.

Get used to it Republicans.

I think a lot of governors were open to a mandate to compel people to get private insurance. As you know, many states have state funded insurance as it is, so private insurance would have been a "privatizing" of the problem, and actually lessening government involvement. Until we get rid of the federal mandate that hospitals have to treat people without regard to ability to pay, then this issue will have to be dealt with someway. There are better free-market ways, of course. Pawlenty did not effect an individual mandate, so give him credit for that.
Even so, such a mandate at the state level would have been permissible under the constitution, even if inadviseable. Obamacare is both inadviseable and unconstitutional.

(PS -- I hope NRO is getting lots of $$ from that CAPTCHA deal 'cuz it is really frackin' annoying)

This individual mandate jargon is not the problem. It's the law signed by Reagan in the 80s that mandated a hospital has to take someone regardless of their ability to pay or their insurance coverage. If law says hospitals have to treat you regardless, then guess what - the system wants everyone to have health insurance. This "mandate is evil talk" is really juvenile, unless you can also make a case that hospitals don't have to take in anyone regardless. I think if you are for freedom and liberty, then you need to make that case!

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (42 U.S.C. Section 1395dd) (EMTALA) was passed in 1986 by a Republican Senate and Democratic House and signed into law by President Reagan. EMTALA requires most of those who provide emergency medical services (hospitals, ambulance services, etc.) to provide emergency medical care to all persons regardless of their actual or potential ability to pay.

That means if, for example, you are robbed and knocked unconscious, have a heart attack or have a child who wanders away and is struck by a car, there is a federal requirement that a private entity assist you or your child with emergency medical care even though the provider has no assurance that you will be able to pay for the care.

The provider has the right to seek payment afterward, but so does everyone else who provides you with a good or service. What is unfair is that the emergency health care provider has an obligation to do so without first obtaining security (proof of insurance, a bond, a retainer, a lien, etc.)

This requirement is unique: No one else - not a lawyer, a residential contractor nor anyone else who is presented with a potential customer who needs potentially expensive "emergency" assistance - has a federal obligation to assist that person without conditioning that assistance on security for payment.

As far as I can tell, the law is popular. During the debate over the Affordable Care Act, I didn't see Republicans argue that EMTALA should be repealed so that hospitals and amublance services were bound only by state law or personal morality in determining when and under what circumstances to provide emergency care.

But if we're going to impose this unfair obligation on medical providers, then why is it wrong to require Americans to pay, according to what they can afford, for some method to ensure that they can pay - e.g., insurance, a bond, an account, etc.?

If you can afford some mechanism for payment of emergency care for yourself or for your child, given that there are a variety of circumstances in which you cannot effectively refuse treatment (e.g., you are unconscious or you're not with your child) or cannot be trusted to abide by your decision that you or your child can properly be allowed to die due to your inability to pay, why should you be allowed to freeload and leech off the hospital (which has to pass the cost, as best it can, to its owners, employees and other patients)?

I'm not defending the "mandate" included in the ACA, but rather defending the principle here: either as a matter of federal law we accept that people will die or be disabled because hospitals and ambulance services cannot determine their ability or their parents' ability to pay for care, or we require people, if they can afford it, to make provision to pay for such care. (I suppose we can have the federal government, which is imposing the requirement, pay for the care - but the same principle applies - why should the taxpayers have to pay for the care of freeloaders and the children they've chosen to bring into the world and then chase after them for reimbursement?)

For the record, I don't have a dog in the Repub fight yet but I simply don't understand why we keep crucifying candidates that change their minds, especially in the right direction. So what if he was open to the idea of an individual mandate five years ago? What counts is where he is now on the issue. I have a much bigger problem with Romney not being able to bring himself to do the country a service by saying that the lab experiment in MA is a failure, so let’s not repeat the disaster nationally. T-Paw now thinks cap and trade is a bad idea, and the guy has called for phasing out ethanol subsidies. Not bad in my book.