Birds on the Brain

Four months before Mitt Romney signed his health care plan into law in Massachusetts in 2006, he told a conservative group that the state’s tax code would be the hammer that would make the plan work.

For those who refused to comply with the state’s mandate to buy health insurance, he said in remarks to the Heritage Foundation, “they are going to lose their personal tax exemption.”

“We will withhold any of their tax refund,” he said.

As the Massachusetts governor and then as a presidential candidate, Mr. Romney spent the next six years describing in a variety of different ways the possible punishments for ignoring the Massachusetts mandate: as “free-rider surcharges,” “tax penalties,” “tax incentives” and sometimes just as “penalties.”

But regardless of the terms he used, his intentions were clear: Massachusetts residents who chose not to buy health insurance would see their state income taxes go up.

Now, as he battles President Obama for the White House, Mr. Romney is asking voters to condemn his rival for a health insurance mandate that is nearly identical to the one he championed in Massachusetts. In allying himself after a delay of several days with much of the rest of the Republican Party in labeling Mr. Obama’s mandate a tax, Mr. Romney reduced the chances that he would anger conservatives. But in effect he also asked voters to ignore his own record.