but romney care on steroids, right? right. and it s also a policy that came out of the heritage institute a long time. so it s actually a right-leaning policy that has been contorted for liberal purposes. so they ve been boxed in in terms of this usage of the word tax . but there s a conversation we should be having over the supreme court decision, and that s the implications of the medicaid ruling. what does it mean to curb federal power? what are the long-term implications of that? we don t really know, but that s the conversation we should be having. and ezra, this was the piece that i thought had to constitutional problem at all. because we ve done so many changes, expansions of medicaid over time. but this time, they said, no, no. this is a change in the nature of the program, which i don t think it is. but this is a possibly much bigger impact in terms of what the coverage might end up being, than even the mandate was going to be. and they did, to be fair, they only chan
things, they did nothing to change the individual mandate, the way it works. that bill is exactly the same, as unpopular as it was before. and they did change the medicare part, and what everybody wants to talk about is whether or not we re going to call this thing a tax or a penalty, when it works in the same way we thought it would, when it raises a small amount of money, and will probably be paid by about 1% of americans. it is to me just like appalling. i can t believe so many people have fallen for this spin. and now republicans have got themselves caught in knots over it and have to spend more days talking about what it is. republicans chase that word tax, because that s their favorite word. if we can hit you with a tax rap politically, and democrats fear the word tax. terrified of it. horribly. so we understand the politics of it. but then this is the first time it cannot work for the republicans, because of romney. well, right. because obama care is nothing but romn