WASHINGTON -- Former Gov. Mitt Romney, whose health care plan in Massachusetts supposedly served as inspiration to President Obama, is trying to shake from his record the state plan he once shepherded by vowing to dismantle the federal law if he captures the White House next year.

Romney's attack on a federal law that he unwittingly helped design is an attempt to tackle a huge weakness at the outset of his campaign for president -- a lesson he learned the last time he ran for president.

"If I am elected president, I will issue on my first day in office an executive order paving the way for waivers from ObamaCare for all 50 states," he wrote in an opinion article published in USAToday. "Subsequently, I will call on Congress to fully repeal ObamaCare"...