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.