Ah, that’s what I was looking for on Newt’s current position re: individual mandate. Thanks.
Newt has also said that the constitutional issue is one reason why he’s moved away from the idea of an individual mandate.
Essentially we have always been mandating emergency room coverage by law without paying for it. Why was there never an uproar about that, but only an uproar over someone trying to come up with a way to pay for that?
Also, if you look at Newt’s full article that Forbes is quoting, his reason for saying Romneycare “has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system” is explained at the end. He was saying it would spur debate, not that it was the final and best solution.
“While the Commonwealth’s plan will naturally endure tremendous scrutiny from those who assert that the law will not work as intended, Massachusetts leaders are to be commended for this bipartisan proposal to tackle the enormous challenge of finding real solutions for creating a sustainable health system. I hope that Massachusetts’ initiative to provide affordable, quality health insurance for all continues to ignite even more debate around the subject of how to best address our nation’s uninsured crisis and the critical problems within the health system at large.”