Sometime between when then-Gov. Mitt Romney mandated health insurance for Massachusetts residents and the current conservative legal assault on the insurance mandate as unconstitutional, the Republican Party did a complete 180 on one of the pillars of health care reform.
No one more exemplifies the sea change than Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) who went from touting a “bipartisan consensus” for mandates in 2009 to now believing them to be unconstitutional. Brian Beutler looks at how the goal of universal coverage — once a bipartisan goal even if the parties disagreed on how to achieve it — has been repudiated by the GOP.
David Kurtz
David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.