Barack Obama’s health insurance reform plan involves an individual mandate. So does the plan that Mitt Romney signed as Governor of Massachusetts. At the time Romney signed the plan, he was a moderate Republican and CommonwealthCare was considered a sober-minded centrist plan. Now Romney is a conservative, and conservatives have decided that ObamaCare is a socialist plot, so he’s had to make up a lot of reasons that their extremely similar plans are actually totally different. Part of the conservative assault, though, is hard for Romney to wriggle away from—the right’s claim that the individual mandate is unconstitutional. Obama’s got one, and Romney’s got one. So does Romney agree with the right that RomneyCare is unconstitutional, or will he defend Obama from this charge?
My colleague Lee Fang asks Romney and he refuses to say:
TP: What do you think about the current effort to declare the individual mandate as unconstitutional?
ROMNEY: You know I’ve got a long discussion that I could give you on that, but I’m in too much of a hurry right now but I think we have that on the site.
TP: Do you think it’s constitutional though, I mean just as a quick answer.
ROMNEY: I think I’ve answered that the best way I can right now which is it’s a big topic and I’m happy to discuss it at length but I just can’t do it in the hall going to the elevator.
TP: Well I mean it is constitutional though, right?
It’s really not a difficult question.
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