If Hillary Clinton were President, things would be quite different. For one, Hillary would have a mandate for health care mandates, which are the key to Democratic health care restructuring.
Everyone focuses on the public option, but the public option is a mere necessary component of a system in which everyone is forced to purchase health insurance. The public option is intended to provide a low cost product for those who cannot afford private insurance under a mandate. Without a public option there can be no mandate. The fact that a public option may undermine the private health care insurance system matters not to those seeking a mandate; all that matters is that everyone is covered.
I am against mandates and the public option, and in favor of free market reforms which empower individual consumers to shop for health care services the same way consumers shop for other services and products.
But if Hillary were President, the fight against mandates and the public option would be tougher because Hillary campaigned on a platform of mandates. Were Hillary President, she could claim with a straight face that she and Democrats in Congress had a mandate to impose mandates.
Barack Obama can claim that he has a mandate to impose mandates, but he cannot do so with a straight face. Obama campaigned on a platform of no mandates. Obama repeatedly pointed out during the primaries that the key difference between his health care plan and Hillary’s health care plan was that Hillary had mandates, but Obama did not (see video below).
So the President who made a point in the campaign to argue against mandates, now is the mandate President. It doesn’t work that way, as the Obama administration is finding out.
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