Explaining ‘Fugitive Slave Act’ Claim Highlighted by Obama

In a speech defending his health-care law Thursday, President Barack Obama ran through a list of Obamacare critics’ claims, among them that the law is the “most dangerous legislation ever.”

But one reference may have caught audience members particularly off guard.

“You had a state representative somewhere say that it’s as destructive to personal and individual liberty as the Fugitive Slave Act,” Mr. Obama told audience members at a Maryland community college. “Think about that. Affordable health care is worse than a law that lets slave owners get their runaway slaves back.”...

Indeed, he wasn’t. The man who charged Mr. Obama with creating a health-care system akin to slavery was Bill O’Brien, a representative in New Hampshire’s state legislature and former speaker of the House. In August, Mr. O’Brien spoke at an Americans for Prosperity rally in New Hampshire and likened the Affordable Care Act to an 1850 pro-slavery federal law....