buyout of america/feed/rss2/For a candidate who keeps vowing to repeal the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney sure can make a convincing argument on its behalf. At least that's how it appeared to a lot of people after Thursday night's Republican presidential candidate debate in Jacksonville, Fla. During a more than 10-minute back-and-forth on health care largely between Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Romney ended up delivering a lengthy justification for his state's decision to pass a 2006 law that included requiring nearly every resident to either have health insurance or pay a tax penalty."If you don't want to buy insurance, then you have to help pay for the cost of the state picking up your bill, because under federal law if someone doesn't have insurance, then we have to care for them in the hospitals, give them free care," said Romney. "So we said, no more, no more free riders. We are insisting on personal responsibility. Either get the insurance or help pay for your care." "Does everybody in Massachusetts have a requirement to buy health care - search results