Santorum actually opposed individual mandate in 1994 race for U.S. Senate

Daily Caller ^ | January 27, 2012 | Jeff Poor

[Lazlo in PA]

As the race for the Republican presidential nomination has reached a point where opposition research has hit a fever pitch, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is discovering that even he isn’t immune from vicious political attacks.

A Washington Examiner piece by Joel Gehrke reported Friday that Santorum supported individual health mandates, citing a 1994 The Morning Call (Pa.) story. But as The Right Scoop blog pointed out on Friday, the article “doesn’t even quote Santorum as supporting the individual mandate.”

Running for the U.S. Senate in 1994, however, Santorum actually said just the opposite of that, as a video from CSPAN shows. The Oct. 31, 1994 video has Santorum saying government shouldn’t “dictate” anything on health care.

“I think what the role of the federal government is to provide opportunity for everyone to get what they want, to live their dreams and not to dictate what everybody should have,” he said.

And he explained why, which is even when certain things are mandated by the federal government, they often don’t work and added it simply is “not the American way of doing things.”

[hawgwalker]

Are you a Paul supporter? In my view we have a the choice now between 3 big government republicans and Ron Paul. Because I believe that we cannot abandon Israel I can not support Ron Paul. But of the three remaining, Santorum is the least “Big Government”.

[patriot08]

Newt

[moehoward]

"Newt" <---What he said.

[Sun]

Mark Levin, a conservative’s conservative supports Rick Santorum. Levin also knows Santorum isn’t perfect - no one is - but I doubt if your post shows his imperfections, because you don’t give the reasons for his vote, and it is an obvious hit piece.

You don’t help your credibility when you show such strong bias.

NOW it’s the end of the discussion.

Good evening.