Until Obamacare, mandatory private health insurance was considered the free-market alternative to the Democrats' piecemeal socialization of the entire medical industry. In November 2004, for example, libertarian Ronald Bailey praised mandated private health insurance in Reason magazine, saying that it "could preserve and extend the advantages of a free market with a minimal amount of coercion." A leading conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, helped design Romneycare, and its health care analyst, Bob Moffit, flew to Boston for the bill signing.

Of course, Coulter then pretends that Obamacare is nothing like Romneycare, despite the fact that its core provisions are almost identical, and inspired, in part, by exactly the same conservative think-tank ideas. Frum cheers Coulter's "public step toward a more humane and rational vision of conservatism." Philip Klein pushes back: 

[P]eople don’t compare Romneycare and Obamacare because their nicknames share the same basic structure, but because the laws have the same basic structure. Specifically, both laws expand Medicaid, force individuals to purchase government-approved insurance or pay a fine, and provide subsidies for individuals to purchase government-designed "private" insurance policies on government-run exchanges.

Yuval Levin and Ramesh Ponnuru likewise hilariously claim that Romneycare isn't Obamacare: