Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney urged President Obama to support his individual health care mandate in 2009, according to Talking Points Memo.
The individual health care mandate that Romney introduced as governor of Massachusetts is similar to the health care law to which he and Republicans have been opposed since it was enacted by President Obama. Rommey has hinted at repealing the law if he becomes president.
In a 2009 USA Today op-ed titled, "Mr. President, What's the Rush?" Romney advised Obama that the president could "learn a thing or two" from the Massachusetts health care plan that Romney enacted.
"First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance," Romney wrote. "Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages 'free riders' to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others."
Since then, Romney has said that the health care law is acceptable on a state level but not nationwide.
Romney has been dogged by Republican critics who say that his health care approach in Massacusetts is no different from what they term "Obamacare."
"Democrats would have waited to spring this on us in the general election," wrote CNN contributor Erick Erickson at his blog RedState. "Friends, if Mitt Romney is the nominee, we will be unable to fight Obama on an issue that 60% of Americans agree with us on."
Come election time, if Romney is the nominee, it will be near impossible for him to hit Obama on the issue of health care, when he enacted a similar law in Massachusetts.
Read more at Talking Points Memo.
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