Obama campaign salutes anniversary of Romney's health care law

(CNN) - Maybe you've heard the president's top aides call Mitt Romney the "godfather" of the Obama health care law?

Now the Obama campaign is out with a web video that drives home the message.

"I helped Gov. Romney develop his health care reform or Romneycare, before going down to Washington to help President Obama develop his national version of that law," says Jonathan Gruber a bright eyed MIT Health Consultant featured prominently in the video. The spot includes old footage of Romney thanking Gruber for his work on the Massachusetts health bill.

Gruber's verdict: "The core of the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare and what we did in Massachusetts are identical."

Get the point?

John McDonough, also identified as an architect of both health care plans, questions Romney's opposition to the president's Affordable Care Act.

"People have him recorded as promoting Massachusetts health reform, promoting it as a national model. And now he is saying he wants to tear down the very model he was promoting," he says.

Gruber puts it succinctly: "all of a sudden Mitt Romney started attacking basically what he had done."

The new web ad comes on the anniversary of the Massachusetts health care law Romney signed as governor. Like the plan Barack Obama put his signature to, the Massachusetts health care bill included a mandate that required residents to purchase health insurance or pay a fine.

The video from 2007 quotes Romney saying that he believes the Massachusetts plan could be "a national model," but Romney also maintains that he believes only a state can impose such a mandate. He insists if elected president he would work to repeal the federal health care law. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering the constitutionality of the national individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act.

The Obama campaign's web video also includes footage of then-Gov. Romney at an official event with a woman identified as Madeline Rhenisch the first person enrolled in Massachusetts "core health plan under Romneycare". In a current-day interview, Rhenisch says her life improved after she got health coverage and asks plaintively of Romney's call for the repeal of Obamacare, "I think, don't you remember me? Don't you remember my story?... Don't we matter?"

Left unsaid: even if Obamacare goes down presumably Rhenisch and others in Massachusetts will continue to get coverage under the state plan Romney passed.

The Romney campaign responded Thursday morning to the release of the campaign video.

"President Obama was wrong to impose a one-size-fits-all plan for the nation on healthcare. Obamacare is bad policy and it's bad law. What is important is that states should be free to pursue their own solutions, and we look forward to celebrating the day Obamacare is overturned and that power is returned to the states," said Romney campaign press secretary Andrea Saul, in a statement.