Re: Breakup of Physician, Drug Company Relationship Could Improve Health Care, Cut Co
"Individual health care insurance mandate has roots two decades long
The controversial individual mandate that was upheld Thursday by the U.S. Supreme Court stems back more than 20 years, believed to have originated with a prominent conservative think tank.
The mandate, requiring every American to purchase health insurance, appeared in a 1989 published proposal by Stuart M. Butler of the conservative Heritage Foundation called "Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans," which included a provision to "mandate all households to obtain adequate insurance."
The Heritage Foundation "substantially revised" its proposal four years later, according to a 1994 analysis by the Congressional Budget Office. But the idea of an individual health insurance mandate later appeared in two bills introduced by Republican lawmakers in 1993, according to the non-partisan research group ProCon.org. Among the supporters of the bills were senators Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who today oppose the mandate under current law."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/28/individual-health-care-insurance-mandate-has-long-checkered-past/
