The Democratic National Committee is hammering former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), with a new Web video calling him “another health care hypocrite” for opposing President Obama’s new health care law — after he himself passed a similar individual-mandate law in Massachusetts, and continued to advocate for the idea during his 2008 presidential campaign.
The Web video uses a clip of Romney during a Republican presidential primary debate:
MODERATOR: “You seem to have backed away from mandates on a national basis.”
ROMNEY: “No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work.”
Romney also remarked to Fred Thompson, “Let me tell what kind of mandates I like, Fred.” To which Thompson replied: “The ones you come up with.”
Romney then discussed how the individual mandate is based on the conservative idea of personal responsibility, rather than allowing people to free-ride off the rest of the public when they get sick and don’t have insurance they could have afforded in advance.
Romney has lately been claiming that there is a difference between state-level action and a federal approach. But this video seems to show him expressly advocating for mandates at the national level.
(Via Greg Sargent.)
