GOP’s lost love affair: RomneyCare

That accomplishment, of course, is health care reform, and more specifically, the individual mandate that is the core of both RomneyCare and ObamaCare. So anathema has it become that Romney mentioned his law only to underscore that it had been “a state solution to our state’s problem’’ — while blasting President Obama for “ram[ming] through a disastrous national health care plan.’’

Back when Romney settled on his plan, the individual mandate, with its emphasis on personal responsibility, was a distinctly conservative idea. As part of a mid-1990s GOP proposal, it had been backed by Bob Dole, Orrin Hatch, Charles Grassley, and 16 other GOP senators.

In Massachusetts, it was liberals, not conservatives, who were most wary.

“When Romney put it forward, we were much more worried about the left flank than Romney was about his right flank,’’ says John McDonough, a former Democrat legislator who, as head of the advocacy group Health Care for All, favored hiking businesses taxes to finance coverage for their uncovered workers.

On the starboard flank, the Heritage Foundation seemed to have Romney’s back. The influential conservative think tank had, after all, helped popularize that approach — though today Heritage downplays its role. “There was this four-year flirtation with a mandate,’’ from about 1989 to 1993, “and then it was largely abandoned’’ by Heritage, says Todd Gaziano, director of Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.

Hmmm. Several Heritage health care experts defended the approach during the Bay State debate in 2005 and 2006. When Romney signed the bill in April of 2006, one of them, Robert Moffit, spoke at the ceremony. (This week, Moffit told me he attended because he supported the insurance exchange.) After the law was signed, Ed Haislmaier, the other Heritage expert, promoted it as a model for other states.

You could also find some praise for Romney’s plan in conservative journals. Further, two of the serious declared or likely candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination were favorably disposed.