NO, IT WASN'T A REACTION TO HILLARYCARE

Some conservatives claim that the Heritage Foundation backed mandate-style health care reform in 1993 because they were simply terrified of what Hillarycare might bring.  This can't account for Heritage's endorsement of Romneycare in 2006: (h/t Igor Volsky at Think Progress)

MOFFIT (HERITAGE FOUNDATION): We’ve been honored by your request…to participate in giving our best advise and our technical assistance in designing a new and different kind of health insurance market. A market that is patient-centered and consumer-based, which will ease access to affordable coverage for thousands of Bay State citizens. This is new. It’s a new market, where individuals and families will be able to own and control their health insurance and take it with them to from job to job… Nothing like it has ever been attempted anywhere else in the United States. So Massachusetts has raised the bar for every state in the union. And that’s the applause you’ve given to your public officials here today is going to echo far beyond the hallow halls of this historic place.

Moffit was a big cheese at Heritage and he's still there:

Robert Moffit, Ph.D.

Senior Fellow

Center for Policy Innovation

Robert E. Moffit, a seasoned veteran of more than three decades in Washington policymaking, is The Heritage Foundation’s senior fellow in domestic and economic policy studies.

Moffit long has specialized in health care and entitlement programs, including Medicare. He brings to the reform effort his government experience as a senior official of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) during the Reagan administration.

Moffit, a senior member of Heritage’s pace-setting health care team, directed the think tank’s Center for Health Policy Studies from 2003 until June 2010.

Sometimes, all you need is a picture and this one comes from the NYT of 4/13/2006:

ORIGINAL PHOTO CAPTION:

Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, joined by, from left, Dr. Robert Moffit of the Heritage Foundation, State Senator Robert E. Travaglini, Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, signed health care legislation into law Wednesday.