Taranto On Death Panels, Individual Mandate And More

James Taranto wrote an in-depth column today at the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal, where he dispels several ObamaCare myths, including those the Mainstream Media and other Obama allies created to demonize opponents’ criticisms of the plan. He also, in ‘Death Panels’ Revisited: How Sarah Palin helped defeat ObamaCare’s deceptive advertising, ever so sweetly uses Barack Obama’s own words to smack down his own monstrosity. Appropriately, he found those words in none other than Judge Roger Vinson’s opinion, issued earlier this week, which ruled ObamaCare unconstitutional.

One distorter of the truth is the St. Petersburg Times’ PolitiFact.com. It named Sarah Palin’s “Death Panel” phrase “lie of the year.” But Taranto proves that the former governor was using the term loosely and shows how the Mainstream Media quickly jumped on it, distorted it, made it out to be something she never intended, took it out of context and ran with it — and ran hard — to discredit her.

But the most precious part of the piece is Taranto’s recounting of the 2008 Democrat primary campaign, where then-candidate Obama hammered Hillary Clinton over her proposed individual mandate plan. His health care proposal did not include such a plank. In fact, as Judge Vinson cited in his opinion, candidate Obama told a talk show host:

But, she mandates that everybody buy health care. She’d have the government force every individual to buy insurance and I don’t have such a mandate because I don’t think the problem is that people don’t want health insurance, it’s that they can’t afford it. … So, I focus more on lowering costs. This is a modest difference. But, it’s one that she’s tried to elevate, arguing that because I don’t force people to buy health care that I’m not insuring everybody.

Then, deliciously:

Well, if things were that easy, I could mandate everybody to buy a house, and that would solve the problem of homelessness. It doesn’t.

That, in fact, has become the pea in the bed for the president, coining an analogy opponents best use to boil down the inanity of the entire scheme. Another ObamaCare lie exposed. With special thanks to . . . Barack Obama.