Obamacare vs. Romneycare -- A Crucial Difference

[Geee]

American Spectator:

As the Maine primary and CPAC straw poll have again pushed Mitt Romney into the front of the pack, Rick Santorum continues to focus on Romneycare and its apparent similarities to Obamacare, as he and Newt Gingrich promised to do after Romney's win in Florida.

But are the similarities all that Governor Romney's opponents portend?

I don't love Romneycare but it is worth noting a few things about it before the real battle begins in earnest -- again. Former statements from Obama on healthcare demonstrate that the two healthcare plans, while similar in some ways, present vast differences in the essential origins and motives that separate Barack Obama and Mitt Romney from their infamous healthcare plans.

First of all, when Romney took on the uninsured in Massachusetts, working with both parties in Boston, he did so with the blessing of the Heritage Foundation. The idea was, essentially, people who were getting a free ride with respect to their healthcare would now have to pay. No more getting healthcare for free. This time you had to pony up some cash or buy insurance from a private carrier. The Heritage Foundation, a longstanding bastion of Conservatism, thought it bold, conservative thinking as they helped to craft its design.

From a Heritage Foundation article on Romney's plan in 2006:

… to allow people to go without health insurance, and then when they do fall ill expect someone else to pay the tab for their treatment is a de facto mandate on providers and taxpayers. Romney proposes to take that option off the table, leaving only two choices: Either buy insurance or pay for your own care. Not an unreasonable position, and one that is clearly consistent with conservative values.

[Evad]

So, just for grins, where did it go so wrong?