2009: Romney Recommends Mandate to Obama

[anvi]

This 2009 USA Today op-ed by Romney says a lot:

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090730/column30_st.art.htm

Romney chides Obama for pushing a bill through Congress without bipartisan support and for not relying enough on subsidies for standardized private plans.  But one thing of note about this piece is in the fifth paragraph, where Romney touts the role the mandate played in helping to create an incentive, via a tax penalty, to get "free-riders" into private plans.  Note that Romney makes no mention of the idea that such an approach should be limited to the states--he very much appears to be recommending it as a model for a national policy.

Ah, the good old days!  Even if they weren't so old...

[Torie]

The Pub conniption over the mandate qua mandate never made any sense really - either ideologically or practically/economically. It just made sense politically.  As I said before, the virtue of courage is in very short supply in DC.

Nobody listens to me.  

[memphis]

Of course. It wasn't just Romney The idea of a mandate was long a Republican idea, in contrast to Clinton's more traditionally Democratic health plan. But you have to give the GOP credit. They are masters of summoning phony outrage.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I'm fine with a state-level mandate. I've said for years that you can't regulate hospitals to be required to a cept people for emergencies but not demand some form of basic healthcare for everyone... It's the same. Thing as with mandating car insurance.