That Pesky Individual Mandate

There's a dizzying array of political backspin happening right now in the GOP that could either make their primary next year a total laughing stock or a gut check moment where they finally realize they loved the individual mandate up until a black man signed it into law.

What else is there to say of the vast Republican support of the individual mandate right up until 2009 when Barack Obama became president?

The probable front runner, Mitt Romney, not only supported the mandate but as governor legislated it into law calling for his system to be replicated nationwide.  If I'm not mistaken, the last couple weeks he has routinely defended his mandate as being the right thing for his state.  If it's Constitutional for a state to do it then it is, for all practical reasons governing a Constitutional republic, just as Constitutional for the federal government to do it.

This week Steve Benen reminded everyone that announced GOP candidate, Tim Pawlenty, also supported the individual mandate right up until the time Barack Obama liked it.

Right there alone we have two very possible GOP candidates who used to support the individual mandate until they all of a sudden were reminded that it was unconstitutional once Obama put it in a piece of legislation.  But wait, there's more.

Since 1991, when Republicans first introduced the individual mandate as viable law to protect private insurance companies, multitudes of Republicans have offered support for it. John McCain, Orrin Hatch, Jim DeMint, Chuck Grassley, Bob Bennett, Tommy Thompson, Lamar Alexander, John Thune, Lyndsay Graham, Scott Brown, and Judd Gregg are just a drop in the bucket of GOPers that once saw the individual mandate necessary and legal.  And trust me there are many, many more.

Oh yeah, as Benen reminds us again today, possible Republican candidate, former Governor of Utah and former Obama appointee, John Huntsman, praised the mandate in 2007 as a legitimate means to reform the health care industry.

These aren't ancient hieroglyphic examples of pre-Civil War Republican support of legislation.  This was just two years ago.  You know right before Obama was president and the Constitution was amended to state that government couldn't tax people, provide for the general welfare of its citizens, or regulate an interstate industry spanning 20% of the total American gross domestic product.