Fiorina and the Individual Mandate

We hardly knew her.
(AP photo)

This could be just the kind of thing to reverse those rising poll numbers with a GOP primary electorate which isn’t exactly thrilled with ♡bamaCare!!!:

Carly Fiorina, who has joined other leading Republican presidential candidates in denouncing Obamacare, once backed an individual mandate to buy health insurance that could put her at odds with others in the GOP.

During a panel discussion on CNN’s “Crossfire” in 2013 about the law with former CNN host Stephanie Cutter, Fiorina said she supports keeping the requirement that every American purchase health insurance.

That’s bad. Although it’s not as bad as it could be, as Allahpundit explains:

She wasn’t endorsing the ObamaCare mandate, her campaign spokesperson tells CNN, she was endorsing a mandate that would force everyone to carry cheaper, high-deductible catastrophic coverage. The point of ObamaCare is to force healthy young adults to buy elaborate plans they don’t really need, thus creating a rich new revenue stream that can help insurers cover expensive treatments for the sick and elderly. The point of Fiorina’s plan is to force people who have the means to pay a small premium to protect themselves from the cost of accidents and serious illnesses, so that the public isn’t stuck with the bill when some of those people inevitably end up in the ER. The cost and ambitions of the two programs are different.

What sticks in my craw however is that Fiorina was supporting any kind of mandate after the Supreme Court had ruled that mandates were unconstitutional. Of course, Chief Justice Roberts also ruled that the mandate was actually a tax, so maybe Fiorina is just in favor of taxing healthy people for being healthy.

Or something.

In any case, Fiorina has clearly failed to think this one through on constitutional or political grounds.

Bad.