President Obama slammed Mitt Romney for reversing his opinion on the individual mandate for health care, according to an interview with Cincinnati’s NBC affiliate that airs on Friday.
“One of the things that you learn as President is that what you say matters and your principles matter,” Obama said, according to a transcript released by his campaign. “And sometimes, you've got to fight for things that you believe in and you can't just switch on a dime.”
The president accused Romney of abandoning his principles to conservative pressure, saying that Romney pushed the health care requirement as a mandate for years in Massachusetts, but later changed his position on the issue when Republicans in Washington started calling the mandate a tax.
Romney said on Wednesday that he agreed with the Supreme Court’s ruling that the requirement to buy health insurance was a tax, contradicting a top Romney adviser who said earlier in the week that Romney viewed the mandate as a penalty.
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