Michael Cannon’s piece on the Massachusetts health program (“Romney’s Folly — Health-care mandates are a middle-class tax” — August 10) creates the erroneous impression that Gov. Mitt Romney and the Heritage Foundation wanted to impose a coverage mandate on employers. Not true. Governor Romney, like Heritage, steadfastly opposed the employer mandate. He vetoed it, and the Democrats in the state legislature overrode it. As for the individual mandate enacted into law, that wasn’t Romney’s idea, or Heritage’s either. To cope with an estimated $1.3 billion in uncompensated care costs shifted onto taxpayers, Romney originally proposed giving Massachusetts citizens a choice: either buy health insurance or, if not, post a bond to cover one’s expenses associated with emergency-room care. If that is a mandate, then it is a mandate to pay one’s own bills. There is nothing conservative or “libertarian” about making taxpayers responsible for the consequences of one’s personal irresponsibility. Heritage felt the governor’s formulation of a personal choice — “insurance or bond: you decide” – was a practical and acceptable way to solve the problem of the “free rider” and the costs of uncompensated care: the “mandate” on taxpayers. Cannon may disagree with that approach to solving a tough problem, or the governor’s decision to sign the bill, but he also has a duty to stick to the facts. The facts are available in Heritage’s analysis of the law at the time of enactment. Robert E. Moffit Director, Center for Health Policy Studies The Heritage Foundation Washington, D.C. MICHAEL CANNON RESPONDS: I agree with this much: The legislature rejected Mitt’s preferred individual mandate and rolled Mitt on the employer mandate. But Bob’s account involves a fair amount of spin. The individual-mandate-with-a-bond-option is still an individual mandate. It would give government all the powers I decry in my article. (It would provide an escape valve in that people could post a bond if they didn’t like how government exercised that control. But that’s not much of an option for people who value health insurance.) Most important, Mitt signed the individual mandate, even without his preferred bond option. No denying paternity there; it’s his baby. As for the employer mandate, Mitt could have blocked it by declaring it a deal-breaker from Day One or by vetoing the whole package. All it would have cost him is $385 million of scammed Medicaid money that never should have gone to Massachusetts in the first place. It’s what any good conservative would have done. I might add that we don’t need to mandate that everyone buy insurance (or post a bond) to ensure that the deadbeats pay their mortgages, electric bills, phone bills, etc. Nor do we need such a mandate for health insurance.