During tonight’s Republican presidential debate, Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health care legislation was a hot topic of discussion, as he was challenged on it more strongly than in any previous debate. Rick Santorum was the first to advance the topic, saying, “Governor Romney, you just don’t have credibility, Mitt, when it comes to repealing Obamacare. You are — your plan was the basis for Obamacare. Your consultants helped Obama craft Obamacare. And to say that you’re going to repeal it, you just — you have no track record on that — that we can trust you that you’re going to do that.” 

Romney replied: “You know, this I think is either our eighth or ninth debate. And each chance I’ve had to talk about Obamacare, I’ve made it very clear, and also in my book. And at the time, by the way, I crafted the [Massachusetts] plan, in the last campaign, I was asked, is this something that you would have the whole nation do? And I said, no, this is something that was crafted for Massachusetts. It would be wrong to adopt this as a nation.”