Department of "Huh?!" (Shut Down the Washington Post Today Department)

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

The headline: "Obama's health reform isn't modeled after Heritage Foundation ideas"

Underneath, Robert Moffitt of Heritage, April 19, 2010, on ObamaCare:

Obama's health reform isn't modeled after Heritage Foundation ideas: [W]hen President Obama tries to sell his health-care law as a moderate approach that borrows ideas developed by the Heritage Foundation, we get incensed.... [L]et me answer the charges.... First, Heritage did not originate the concept of the health insurance exchange... the version of the exchange we did develop....

The other charge... is that the federal individual mandate... came from us.... Yes, in the early 1990s, we, along with other prominent conservative economists, supported the idea of such a mandate...

Robert Moffitt of Heritage, April 4, 2007, on RomneyCare:

The Massachusetts Health Plan: An Update and Lessons for Other States | The Heritage Foundation: Massachusetts's experiment in health market reform is already showing progress. The average Massachusetts resident without health insurance will soon be able to obtain coverage for $175 per month through the state's Connector, a health insurance exchange for individuals and small businesses.... Massachusetts's latest premium estimates are dramatically lower than projected in a widely reported January 2007 memorandum that foresaw $380 per month individual premiums.[4] The current estimates are in line with the original projection of approximately $200 per month targeted by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in 2006, when he first advanced his health care reform proposal.... Seven insurance carriers thus far are set to compete for consumers' dollars in the new Connector.... Governor Romney was able to secure greater flexibility for the state's market...

Edmund Haislmaier of Heritage, April 11, 2006, on RomneyCare:

The Significance of Massachusetts Health Reform: Last week the Massachusetts legislature passed comprehensive health care reform legislation almost a year after Governor Romney first proposed the key elements of a reform strategy.... The first major element of the Massachusetts legislation is the creation of a new, statewide health insurance 'Connector.'... The basic insight behind a state-sponsored health-insurance clearinghouse or exchange (like the Connector) is that markets sometimes work more efficiently and effectively when there is a single place to facilitate diverse economic activity... the health insurance Connector.... The second major element of the Massachusetts legislation builds on the Connector concept to reform the state's current system for subsidizing uncompensated care costs.... Having a one-stop-shop in the form of the new Connector in place makes for an administratively simpler and cheaper way... enroll the uninsured patients they serve into their own health insurance plans, with the funding they now receive converted into premium subsidies....

Personal Responsibility: Finally, the element of the Massachusetts bill that has attracted the most attention and dispute is the "personal responsibility" provision, also known as the "individual mandate."... [Romney] argued that if the market could be reorganized to make coverage universally available and portable, deregulated at least enough to make it affordable for the middle class, and subsidized enough to make it affordable for the low-income, then there would be no reasonable excuse for anyone to forgo health insurance. Romney also pointed out that to allow people to go without health insurance when they can expect someone else to pay the tab for their treatment is a de facto mandate on providers and taxpayers. Romney's plan was to take that option off the table....

Politics is the art of the possible.... But that should not overshadow the significance of Massachusetts' achievement.... The Governor and legislature have provided their citizens with the tools to achieve what the public really wants: a health system with all the familiar comforts of existing employer group coverage but with the added benefits of portability, choice, and control. Other governors and legislators would be well advised to consider this basic model as a framework for health care reform in their own states.