which they helped write (consumer advocates were excluded), while smaller firms represented by the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA) favored GOP proposals. HIAA ran the famous "Harry and Louise" ads against the Clinton plan.

Gov. Mitt Romney signed the individual mandate into law in Massachusetts in 2006, drawing praise from Senators Jim DeMint and Orrin Hatch and other Republican leaders because of the mandate's boost for private business. It was even part of a bipartisan bill co-written by Senators Bob Bennett (R-Ut.) and Ron Wyden (D-Oreg.) in 2007.

Some Republicans and the Cato Institute opposed it, but there's no doubt that the individual mandate was a Republican scheme until Democrats grabbed hold of it in 2009. After that, Republicans denounced the mandate and called it socialism.

Insurance companies, whose representativesto the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act ("Medicare Modernization Act"), a Republican "reform" bill signed by President Bush in 2003. This legislation turned Medicare into a corporate cash cow and imposed a complex semi-privatized Medicare system that funnels over $500 billion to Big Pharma and Big Insurance.

The Medicare Modernization Act accomplishes this giveaway through increased payments to Medicare Advantage plans, which converts Medicare funds into insurance company profits, and through Part D, which provides drug benefits for seniors. Part D is only available under a private drug plan provided by (what else?) an insurance company.

Partisan Loyalty vs. Substance

If Obamacare is the rejected grandchild of the Heritage Foundation and betrayed love child of the pre-2009 GOP, then we should also ask: Why did so many progressives, unions,