With polls showing as many as 82% of Republicans opposed to the new national health care plan, Romney is trapped by the Massachusetts Health Care Law he signed with a big smile in April 2006…
"Massachusetts is taking a giant leap forward," he said at the time.
But, now, that bill could be a giant leap backward, because it included an individual mandate–a legal requirement that everyone must buy health insurance.
And that's what voters dislike most about the national plan.
Romney tried to distinguish his bill from President Obama's:
"Our plan was a state solution to a state problem. And his is a power grab by the federal government to put in place a one-size-fits-all plan across the nation," Romney said today.
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But he can't erase his past support for the individual mandate:
"If people can afford to buy insurance and they don't happen to buy it, the first couple of years, we just tell 'em they're not going to get their tax refund. In other years, we start applying a penalty to them," Romney said in 2006.
Which leads to Romney being attacked by both sides.
The Wall Street Journal editorialized: "Mr. Romney is compromised and not credible."
And the Democratic National Committee accused Romney of trying to "repeal and replace his own record."
Which makes you wonder whether Ted Kennedy was right five years ago when the bay state bill was signed.
"When Kennedy and Romney support a piece of legislation usually one of them hasn't read it," Kennedy joked in 2006.
The last person Mitt Romney wants to be compared to is John Kerry…but, today, they both seem the same to me.
Kerry's presidential campaign was done in by flip flops, and now it's Romney who can say, "I was for the individual mandate before I was against it."
Until he changes his mind…again.
I'm Andy Hiller, and that's my instinct.
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