The Mittster is doing the USUAL -- HE WAS FOR IT BEFORE HE WAS AGAINST IT.
"IT" is a tax (and using the personal income tax system) as a way to obligate people to buy health insurance under an individual mandate, and to penalize them if they for fail to buy the health insurance.
The Boston Globe on June 22, 2005 reported about a talk given by the Mittster at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.
Here is the link to page 1: http://web.archive.org/...
and to page 2: http://web.archive.org/...
Here are a few choice excerpts (and they DRIP with irony):
Massachusetts residents who choose not to obtain health insurance would face tax penalties and even the garnishing of their wages under a proposal Governor Mitt Romney unveiled yesterday.
Romney's plan would require all residents in Massachusetts to have some form of health insurance or agree to pay their medical bills out of their own pockets. No other state has such a requirement, and if Romney manages to make it law, it would be a compelling accomplishment he could point to if he runs for president.
Currently, people without health insurance often go to hospitals and receive care they never pay for, because the hospital and the state pick up the tab. Under Romney's proposal, uninsured Massachusetts residents would be asked to enroll in a plan when they seek care.
If they refuse, the state could recoup the medical costs in several ways, Romney said yesterday: The state might cancel the personal tax exemption on their state income taxes, which is worth about $175. It could withhold some or all of their state income tax refund and deposit it in what Romney called a ''personal healthcare spending account." Or, it might take money out of the person's paycheck, as it does now to collect child support.
''No more 'free riding,' if you will, where an individual says: 'I'm not going to pay, even though I can afford it. I'm not going to get insurance, even though I can afford it. I'm instead going to just show up and make the taxpayers pay for me,' " Romney told reporters after a healthcare speech at the John F. Kennedy Library.
In calling for an individual mandate, Romney is allying himself with influential conservatives such as former US House speaker Newt Gingrich, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, and the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation. But he also risks alienating critics who say the idea is overly intrusive.
Don'tcha just LOVE it??
R-MONEY can't get out of his own way. Now that he has called the Massachusetts mandate "NOT A TAX" but the Federal mandate under the ACA a "TAX," it is time to put out an ad that shows that in 2005, R-MONEY said it WAS a tax in Massachusetts as well.