Mitt Romney defended the individual mandate as “fundamentally a conservative principle” today. Erick Erickson makes the important point that just because Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution didn’t prevent Romney from doing this in Massachusetts doesn’t mean the policy is conservative. But the fact that Romney is defending the policy at the heart of Obamacare — which President Obama also defends on “individual responsibility” grounds — complicates both the legal and political case for junking the federal health care law.
