American Crossroads: Obama Opposed Mandates Before He Made Them Law
The conservative big-money PAC American Crossroads is taking advantage of this week's Supreme Court arguments on the Affordable Care Act to remind voters that President Barack Obama once opposed an individual mandate to buy health insurance, which is at the heart of the case against the law he signed that includes the requirement.
In a new web video, the Karl Rove-linked outfit strings together clips of Obama on the campaign trail in 2008, when he was running against Hillary Clinton and opposed the mandates that were a key part of her plan. Mixed in with those are the statements the president made in support of a mandate after he was elected.
"If a mandate was a solution, we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating that everybody buy a house," Obama says in one of the clips from 2008.
The spot is essentially on target. The Obama campaign, at one point, went so far as to raise the specter of the infamous "Harry and Louise" ad against Clinton's mandate plan. That ad, of course, was key in defeating Clinton's original push for health care reform when she was first lady.
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"Hillary's health care plan forces everybody to buy insurance, even if you can't afford it," said a flyer produced by Obama's campaign in 2008.
What the Crossroads spot leaves out is that the Affordable Care Act includes significant subsidies to help people buy insurance if they cannot afford it.
Watch the ad:
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
