Saturday, March 3, 2012

Flashback: In 2009, Mitt Romney op-ed in USA Today urged President Obama to embrace individual mandate in Obamacare


Out of all the issues Mitt Romney has flip-flopped on, healthcare reform is the biggest to many. Mitt Romney signed Romneycare in Massachusetts and still supports it. In spite of what Romney claims, Romneycare was the model for Obamacare. Romney defends Romneycare as a state solution and Conservatives certainly believe in state's rights. That isn't the issue. Massachusetts certainly had a right under the Federal Constitution to pass laws for things not reserved to the Federal Government by the U.S. Constitution. Of course, they have to abide by their State Constitution. The real issue isn't if Massachusetts had a right to do Romneycare. The question is, "Was it the right thing to do?" Romneycare was a massive intrusion into a private industry and included a mandate that forced citizens to buy a private product because they live in the state of Massachusetts. Even if this is allowed under Massachusetts' Constitution, it is a massive expansion of government regulation and a violation of citizen's individual liberty. Anyone who supports this has no idea what our founding fathers, and countless others since then, fought and died for.

RedState reported:
In July 2009, Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed in USA Today urging Barack Obama to usean individual mandate at the national level to control healthcare costs.
On the campaign trail now, Mitt Romney says the individual mandate is appropriate for Massachusetts, but not the nation. Repeatedly in debates, Romney has said he opposes a national individual mandate.
But back in 2009, as Barack Obama was formulating his healthcare vision for the country, Mitt Romney encouraged him publicly to use an individual mandate. In his op-ed, Governor Romney suggested that the federal government learn from Massachusetts how to make healthcare available for all. One of those things was “Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages “free riders” to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others.”
Friends, if Mitt Romney is the nominee, we will be unable to fight Obama on an issue that 60% of Americans agree with us on.

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