<p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="widows: 2; text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; border-collapse: separate; font: 12px 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, sans-serif; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; color: #000000; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><img class="caption" src="images/stories/ann_coulter.jpg" border="0" alt="Ann Coulter" title="Ann Coulter" hspace="7" align="left" />If only the Democrats had decided to socialize the food industry or housing, Romneycare would probably still be viewed as a massive triumph for conservative free-market principles -- as it was at the time.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />It's not as if we had a beautifully functioning free market in health care until Gov. Mitt Romney came along and wrecked it by requiring that Massachusetts residents purchase their own health insurance. In 2007, when Romneycare became law, the federal government alone was already picking up the tab for 45.4 percent of all health care expenditures in the country.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />Until Obamacare, mandatory private health insurance was considered the free-market alternative to the Democrats' piecemeal socialization of the entire medical industry.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />In November 2004, for example, libertarian Ronald Bailey praised mandated private health insurance in Reason magazine, saying that it "could preserve and extend the advantages of a free market with a minimal amount of coercion."<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />A leading conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, helped design Romneycare, and its health care analyst, Bob Moffit, flew to Boston for the bill signing.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />Romneycare was also supported by Regina Herzlinger, Harvard Business School professor and health policy analyst for the conservative Manhattan Institute. Herzlinger praised Romneycare for making consumers, not business or government, the primary purchasers of health care.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="widows: 2; text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; border-collapse: separate; font: 12px 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, sans-serif; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; color: #000000; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><a href="http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2012-02-01.html">Click to read more on anncoulter.com &gt;&gt;&gt;</a></span></span></span></p>