They can’t even get their message straight, but Mitt Romney and his Republican backers wants to run the free world.
The message in question here is where does Mitt Romney stand on the individual mandate – something he attached to his RomneyCare Health Care law in Massachusetts and found in President Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act also known as ObamaCare. The Supreme Court recently called the mandate a tax on those who refuse to obtain healthcare.
We are still waiting for a definite position on what Romney and his campaign thinks.
Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney has appeared to contradict previous campaign statements by saying President Barack Obama’s health reform law entails a “tax” and not a penalty.
Romney, who enacted a similar healthcare overhaul when he was governor of Massachusetts, has had to reassure fellow conservatives who despise so-called “Obamacare” without appearing to flip-flop on his own legacy.
The balancing act was evident in an interview with CBS news on Wednesday in which Romney agreed with the Supreme Court’s ruling that the individual mandate — which requires Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a fee — amounts to a tax and not a penalty, as both he and Obama had previously argued.
“The Supreme Court has the final word. And their final word is that Obamacare is a tax. So it’s a tax,” Romney told CBS Wednesday.
“They decided it was constitutional. So it is a tax and it’s constitutional,” he said, adding that he had agreed with the court’s dissent, which said the mandate was unconstitutional.
That appeared to mark a shift in his position, given that Romney campaign aide Eric Fehrnstrom had told MSNBC on Monday that the Republican candidate had “consistently described the mandate as a penalty.”
