Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum is fond of attacking his opponents for their previous support of government mandates for health care reform. But the former Pennsylvania Senator’s past is also riddled with prior support for the government incursions despised by conservatives today.
In 1992 as a member of the House of Representatives representing the Pittsburgh area, Santorum proposed "medisave accounts," a plan that would require individuals who set up their own accounts independent of their employers purchase high deductible insurance coverage.
In 1994 during the Republican primary for Senate, according to two reports from April and May in the Morning Call, Santorum himself was in favor of the individual mandate as a alternative to the Clinton takeover of health care.
Later in 1994 after Santorum had won the primary, the candidate for Senate proposed his own health care plan, this time changing his support for mandates, shifting the responsibility to buy health care from the individual to the employer.
The 1994 Santorum health care plan, as previously reported by BuzzFeed mandated that employers at least offer their employees a chance to purchase health insurance through a group insurance plan that was fully tax deductible.
Santorum’s previous support for mandates, for both employers and individual shows like his opponents he’s become much more conservative on health care with time and he’s not exempted from the having changed his previous positions on one of this election's most important issues.