Video: E-mails show Romney backed health mandate

>>> of the obama campaign strategy has been to go after his jobs record during his time in massachusetts . so far the campaign has not launched a major offensive on the governor's push for an individual mandate in the health care law he signed in 2006 . it is something romney now says of course he is against. now once secret e-mails obtained by the wall street journal show governor romney fought for the same type of provision part of president obama 's health care law and is now before the supreme court . wall street journal reporter mark marmott broke the story. thank you for your time. let's talk about the background of the e-mails obtained by the wall street journal . are these between the governor and his staff?

>> well, first of all, as you said before, these are e-mails that the governor and his aids didn't want known because at the end of his administration in 2006 they wiped all of the e-mails off a computer server in the governor's office and carted away 17 hard drives from all of their personal computers . so just by accident a few of these e-mails survived on a backup server from one of the administration officials and we filed a public records request to get them.

>> we actually spoken with the boston globe reporter who is part of the story when it broke that these hard drives had come up missing and the computers were wiped. one of the e-mails that you have in your report, i will read it to the audience, spoke and he isn't ready to sign onto the deal as of yet. i am confident a deal can be struck. important, we are not to tell anyone where he is on these because he will have to make his own trades down the road perhaps. what does that mean? what is he talking about there?

>> well, there was a whole back and forth. the democrats in massachusetts were in favor of especially putting the onus on employers to make sure they had health shurnz for employees and they were more the individual mandate which as he know is controversy, so there is another e-mail in here where travis then said and he and his people put forth a plan that called for individual responsibility, not individual mandate. in other words, encouraging individuals to have insurance but not requiring it. governor romney 's health secretary was ready to governor romney and saying, look, this is unclear whether where this is going and we need to have an individual mandate to make this work. so clearly governor romney and his aids were in favor of the individual mandate and pushing it on us somewhat reluctant democratic majority in the legislature at that point.

>> and the e-mails also show that then governor romney stressed that the individual mandate was a market friendly alternative to a government-run system. all of this obviously might play a role as we move closer to november, but, mark, you and i both know that at least the attack line from the obama campaign has been the jobs record. they say it was dismal jobs record or jobs creation record for governor romney . why haven't we seen some of this information come forward, at least in defending health care by this administration?

>> well, i think that the -- it was probably more of a political issue for governor romney in the gop primary where he was portrayed as on the liberal wing of the party and somewhat of a flip-flopper on this issue. i think the problem for the obama campaign is that they're is sort of an agreement or seemingly an agreement with governor romney circa 2006 on the individual mandate. the question is can they turn it to political advantage? i think one of the reason it is hasn't come forth until now is because these e-mails hadn't come out although it was known before that governor romney was in favor of those, and wasn't known some of the sort of back and forth and the way they were dealing in confidential ways with the democratic legislature wasn't quite as well known.

>> as indicated in your piece, the romney campaign has declined to comment on these e-mails. we have not heard anything from the campaign?

>> nothing.

>> and i imagine you don't expect to at this point. you also point out or we have a wall street journal op-ed where governor romney defended the individual mandate he wrote at the time because health insurance will now be affordable and subsidized. we insist that everyone purchase health insurance from one of our private insurance companies . we also should note in his official portrait as governor at the bottom there is a medical seal symbolized the first in the nation universal health care law he signed in april 2006 at the bottom there. you're right, it was probably more of an issue during the primary. however, there is just an article yesterday there are still conservatives who are not enthusiastic about governor romney , still unsure, he still has some i guess some room to grow if you will even within his base and that perhaps is why he is teetering closer to the right. that's why we saw him in texas yesterday, a solid red state , and not a place where perhaps there are a lot of independents who may need their minds changed and i can say that because it is my home state.

>> yes. i think it is pretty clear that governor romney has moved from essentially the way he governed here in massachusetts as a centrist and able to work with the democratic legislature and when he ran for president particularly this time he called himself a severe conservative and at least in the primaries was running as a much more conservative person than he was telling the massachusetts populous when he was governor. this is what obviously what happens in political races. the question is whether the obama people or whether this will somehow come back to haunt governor romney . i will say that we found four different versions of the op-ed piece that you refer to that where governor romney was personally drafted the first draft on a saturday and sent it and pretty good writer as a journalist, i can say that, and so he was back and forth and he used language about the individual mandate in there that never did appear in the op-ed and it was pretty clear that he was in favor of the individual mandate and saying that the alternative to it is to basically let people go uninsured and then the taxpayers pick up the bill which is precisely the same argument that the obama administration has been using, so i think that this probably will come back into the campaign at some point in the next few months, particularly if the supreme court strikes down the individual mandate.

>> mark, thank you so much for your time and coming onto discuss your report. thank

arthur christmas asus transformer nebraska football nebraska football online deals leap pad lauren alaina