There is some indication that Santorum was a fan of the individual mandate in the 1990s (h/t Erick Erickson), based on a 1994 account in a Pennsylvania newspaper. As an alternative to Hillarycare, Santorum sought to “require individuals to buy health insurance rather than forcing employers to pay for employee benefits,” according to the Lehigh Valley Morning Call.
Also from Forbes:
“Newt, you held that position for over 10 years,” said Santorum. “And, you know, it’s not going to be the most attractive thing to go out there and say, you know, it took me 10 or 12 years to figure out I was wrong, when guys like Rick Santorum knew it was wrong from the beginning.”
(Santorum is stretching a bit here, for he, too, supported an individual mandate in the 1990s in opposition to Hillarycare. So it’s not correct for him to claim that he “knew it was wrong from the beginning.”)
And then there’s this from American Thinker by C. Edmund Wright:
Santorum the ‘Good Son’? Not So Much.
Excerpt: “[T]he only reason Santorum has gotten away with [pretending he’s a better conservative] is that no one has taken his candidacy seriously enough to bother to look. He has not been above the fray. He has been off to the side of the fray. Ironically, he has been the “look at me” candidate all along, so now perhaps it is indeed time to look at him. Be careful what you wish for, Senator.
And now the Romney mud machine is about to be unleashed against Rick. Soon we’ll be back to reality.
