Newt Gingrich was in favor of the individual mandate before he was against it. Caught on video in 2005:
“I mean, I am very opposed to a single-payer system — but I’m actually in favor of a 300 million-payer system. Because one of my conclusions in the last six years, and founding the Center for Health Transformation, and looking at the whole system is, unless you have a hundred percent coverage, you can’t have the right preventive care, and you can’t have a rational system, because the cost-shifts are so irrational, and create second-order problems.”
And in his book in 2008:
Finally, we should insist that everyone above a certain level buy coverage (or, if they are opposed to insurance, post a bond). Meanwhile, we should provide tax credits or subsidize private insurance for the poor.
Today, he wants the same thing he proposed two years ago overturned as being unconstitutional. Just because the president signed the idea into law.
Opposite Day Politics bites another Republican in the ass.