Conservative super-PAC American Crossroads released a new video on Monday that criticizes President Obama as inconsistent in his support of an individual mandate for health insurance, a core tenet of his healthcare legislation being challenged in the Supreme Court this week.
The video, titled "Individual Mandate: Obama v. Obama," features clips of the president slamming the mandate as a presidential candidate and speaking out in support of it as president.
It is made to look as though the president is arguing against himself in front of the Supreme Court, a direct reference to the court's three-day hearing on Obama's signature law.
"It's a plan that asks everyone to take responsibility for meeting this challenge — everybody," says Obama in the video. That's followed by a clip of Obama saying, "If the mandate was the solution, we could try that to solve homelessness, mandating everybody to buy a house."
"The ObamaCare mandate: Obama was right — before he was wrong," concludes the video.
For their part, Democrats have accused the GOP of likewise changing its view of the individual mandate and have said that requiring people to participate in an insurance program was originally a conservative idea.
"It's ironic that the conservatives that came up with this idea are so vigorously attacking it, largely because I think it was what they perceive as a Democratically sponsored piece of legislation," said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on CNN Wednesday.
At stake in the landmark court case is whether requiring people to purchase health insurance or pay a fine is constitutional.
