Coakley Cites Romney's Health Law To Defend ObamaCare

State Attorney General Martha Coakley submits a legal brief in support of President Obama's health law — and she uses Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health law as the key ammunition to buttress her argument that the individual mandate is legitimate, Politico reports.

In a brief filed Monday in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, Coakley — the Democrats' unsuccessful 2010 Senate candidate — says the fact that Romney and the Massachusetts Legislature imposed an individual mandate as part of their health care law suggests that Congress had a "rational basis" for imposing a similar mandate in its law.

“Governor Romney and the Massachusetts Legislature, like Congress, determined that an individual health insurance mandate, as part of a comprehensive reform package, would serve to increase access to healthcare while greatly decreasing the detrimental cost-shifting caused by people who chose to forego insurance and shift the cost of their current and future healthcare to others,” Coakley wrote.

Coakley filed the amicus brief to support the Affordable Care Act against the challenge brought by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.