Santorum Supported Individual Mandate Before He Was Morally Aghast By It

Rick Santorum is really against the individual mandate.  Watch any debate and you’ll see that he’s barely able to contain his contempt for Gov. Romney’s healthcare plan in Massachusetts.

However, in 1994, he was singing a different tune.  Back then, he wanted to require people to buy health insurance. Here’s a 1994 LeHigh Valley article (this is page two, but I’m trying to draw your attention to the top sentence):

Santorum and Watkins would require individuals to buy health insurance rather than forcing employers to pay for employee benefits.

I don’t doubt that people change and alter their views over the course of several years.  But this is what gets me: the absolute moral indignation candidates like Newt and Santorum show when they act as if they’d never consider such an “unconstitutional concept.”  Though this is no doubt a show for the red-meat conservatives who’d rather someone shake a fist in the air than propose actual solutions, it’s still disheartening.

Will it come up in the New Hampshire debate?

As Sarah Palin would say, “You betcha.”