Tom Price Backpedals: O’Care Mandate Repeal ‘Exactly The Right Thing To Do’

Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price reacts after throwing out the ceremonial first pitch before the start of a baseball game between the Washington Nationals and the Miami Marlins, Wednesday, Aug. 9, 201... Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price reacts after throwing out the ceremonial first pitch before the start of a baseball game between the Washington Nationals and the Miami Marlins, Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) MORE LESS
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Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price contradicted himself again on Wednesday, reversing his comment the previous day that eliminating the penalties associated with Obamacare’s individual mandate “will harm the pool in the [insurance] exchange market.”

“Repealing the individual mandate was exactly the right thing to do,” Price said in a statement to Politico Wednesday. “Forcing Americans to buy something they don’t want undermines individual liberty as well as free markets.”

“The only fair and effective way to bring down health care costs is to allow markets to create more choices for consumers and small businesses,” his statement continued.

It was a turn back to conservative orthodoxy, given that congressional Republicans eliminated the penalty for not having health coverage (or else receiving a waiver) as part of their tax bill last year. The change will take effect in 2019. 

On Tuesday, Price briefly strayed from that orthodoxy when he said in a speech to the World Health Care Congress that the mandate repeal “will harm the pool in the exchange market, because you’ll likely have individuals that are younger and healthier not participating in that market, and consequently, that drives up the cost for other folks within that market.”

TPM obtained audio of Price’s comments. You can listen to them here.

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Notable Replies

  1. Giving Americans the choice to buy health insurance that pays for nothing is the right thing to do for the greedy insurance companies
    What’s not to like

  2. I wish the GOP’ers would tell us what it is they want? What do they have in mind. Choices, free markets and liberty sure as shit isn’t what their after. The ACA was crafted to solve a problem. People didn’t have healthcare. If they got sick thay had no place to go or means to seek care. That’s what it was about. Free markets existed then and so did the problem. Choice, as in shitty insurance, existed then and contributed to the problem. So improving healthcare for Americans can’t be the GOP goal. They wouldn’t force us back to the original problematic landscape if they wanted to solve the problem. I understand they have to say the things they do. Like everyone else I know it’s bullshit. What do they really want?

  3. Simple, the wealthy have healthcare and the poor die in the street
    It’s for the poor insurance companies you know

  4. Tom Price just got Koch Blocked. I guess his old paymasters have more pull than his new paymasters at Jackson Health…

  5. Shitty man in a shitty golf shirt makes a pivot from the divot he created. So which is the real Tom Price?

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