Specter of RomneyCare haunts Romney's book tour

“People have been coming to me and saying, ‘Well, why are you against this health-care policy in the federal government when your man, Mitt Romney, has done the same thing in Massachusetts?’ ” said Bob Letourneau, a Republican state senator from Derry, N.H., addressing Mr. Romney Wednesday night during a question-and-answer session at Saint Anselm College…

Mr. Gruber, a Democrat who worked in the Clinton administration, said Mr. Romney “knocked my socks off” in 2005 when the governor explained his commitment to universal health-insurance coverage. “He was arguing for it when his [political] advisers were saying he shouldn’t do it,” Mr. Gruber recalled.

“If any one person in the world deserves credit for where we are now [with the passage of the new federal law], it’s Mitt Romney,” he said. “He designed the structure of the federal bill.”