Gail Collins (author of When Everything Changed) congratulates Mitt Romney on his pioneer work in Massachusetts which helped pave the way for the new health reform.  The new plan has vast similarities to the Romney plan and even Obama spoke of it on national TV. As for the requirement that everyone be aboard the program, the inflamed Right is all up in arms, but Collins sets that right here as being pretty conservative after all. BP

About that insurance requirement. Americans pay an estimated $42.7 billion a year in taxes and higher health care premiums because of the cost of medical treatment for the uninsured. So you would think that conservatives in particular would believe that everybody ought to be held responsible for having their own coverage. Unless they?re starting a new cutting-edge Let Them Die in a Ditch Movement.

?No more free-riders,? Romney said frequently, back when he was a little more vocal about defending the Massachusetts plan. Lately, he?s been vaguer on the subject, and when it comes to the new federal law, he?s jumped on the repeal bandwagon. When someone from the liberal blog ThinkProgress asked Romney whether he thought the new federal insurance mandate ? so very much like the Massachusetts one ? was constitutional, he muttered something about it being ?a big topic? and ducked into an elevator.

It?s possible that he hadn?t looked so uncomfortable since the time he was chased by a reporter who wanted to know if he thought Seamus the Irish setter had enjoyed driving to Canada on top of the family car.

Gail Collins

NY Times  4-1-10