It turns out that universal health insurance is dangerous for your health...at least if you're in the GOP:
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) "would never consider" endorsing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for president again in 2012 unless Romney repudiates the health reforms he sought as governor, a source close to DeMint said Thursday.
A source close to the conservative icon emphasized that, despite comments to The Hill indicating that Romney shouldn't shoulder all the political blame for the Massachusetts healthcare plan, DeMint wouldn't endorse Romney again unless he admits the plan was mistaken.
"It's obvious Jim was just trying to be nice to the guy he backed over McCain, as many conservatives did in 2008," the source said. "But he would never consider backing Romney again unless he admits that his Massachusetts healthcare plan was a colossal mistake."
Of course, Jim DeMint actually supported RomneyCare in 2007, but that was before he decided that defeating President Obama's health care reform bill would be Obama's Waterloo. But as things turned out, even though Republicans didn't defeat health care reform and it hasn't become Obama's Waterloo, the fact that it was partly based on RomneyCare has become the single biggest issue weighting down Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign. As I wrote a year ago, Romney's past support for health care reform, including an individual mandate, "will become [his] own Waterloo."
Romney has tried to nuance his position, saying that while he supported health care reform in Massachusetts, he wouldn't support it nationally because he thinks health care reform is a states' rights issue. That's a virtually impossible argument for him to make, because as recently as October 2009, he said his plan was a "model" for the nation and during the 2008 campaign he supported a mandate at the national level.
Nobody is buying Romney's argument, however. Not tea party activists. Not Jim DeMint. And as a result, RomneyCare become Mitt's very own personal Waterloo.