ObamaCare: An Offer You Can't Refuse

I happened to catch the president today on CNN, telling a townhall meeting of New Hampshire voters that the health care plan everybody loves to hate really isn't that controversial. New "exchanges" will allow the uninsured to buy health insurance, and new rules will bar insurance companies from denying coverage to those new customers, even if they have preexisting medical problems.

Sounds reasonable enough. And in return, the president assures us the government is simply going to "ask that everybody get health insurance." What a nice guy! How could we angry voters say no to a deal like that?

Except apparently, Obama's definition of "asking" differs from mine, because both health reform bills currently stuck in Congress require virtually everyone to buy health insurance, or face steadily escalating fines in coming years.

If this little nugget of coercion sounds familiar, you might be remembering it from the 2008 presidential campaign, when a candidate named Barack Obama criticized his chief Democratic rivals for supporting an "individual mandate" that would force all Americans to buy health insurance. According to candidate Obama, "A mandate means that in some fashion, everybody will be forced to buy health insurance. ... But I believe the problem is not that folks are trying to avoid getting health care. The problem is they can't afford it. And that's why my plan emphasizes lowering costs."

Flash forward a year, and President Obama has apparently had a change of heart, telling CBS news that "during the campaign I was opposed to this idea ... [but] I am now in favor of some sort of individual mandate as long as there's a hardship exemption."

I think it's fair to say that the term "flip-flop" will die with John Kerry, but still, that's quite a turnaround on an important issue. But hardly a surprise, since anyone remotely acquainted with basic economics can tell you that "universal" health insurance breaks down if you don't force healthy people to buy it and pay the insurance premiums that underwrite the medical costs of insuring the sick. Nobody right, left or center argues that simple fact.

Of course, quite a few conservatives and libertarians on the right argue that government has no business, or constitutional authority, to tell citizens to buy a stick of gum, let alone health insurance. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi neatly summed up the left's response to this objection recently when a reporter asked her if she believed the Constitution gives Congress the power to mandate health insurance, responding: "Are you serious? Are you serious?" Good comeback, Nance.

Since I'm already on record as opposing the mandate to buy insurance on constitutional grounds, and since Nancy Pelosi doesn't care what I think, I won't belabor the point further. However, the Obama-Pelosi mandate does entail one rather bizarre consequence that gets too little attention.

Health care, the president and his backers declare, should be a right for every American, and universal health insurance is the mechanism for upholding that right. But universal health insurance doesn't work without a universal mandate, so our participation in this plan will not be optional.

Ponder that for a moment. Because the rights enumerated in the Constitution -- the right to speak and worship freely, assemble peacefully, vote, etc. -- share an important similarity: in each case, the Constitution protects these rights by prohibiting the government from interfering with them. The Constitution says you can speak as you please, own a gun, and go to whatever church you want; but it makes no provision forcing you to do any of those things.

The newfound right to health insurance, if enacted, would become a first in our history: a right that cannot be refused. What you choose to do with every human right enshrined in the Constitution is your business; when it comes to Democratic health reform, you have the right to do what you're told.