THE WAGES OF HILLARYCARE

Hillary Clinton's "individual mandate" for health care, is being exposed for its inevitable government coercion. Under HillaryCare II, everyone would be required to buy health insurance, along with more insurance regulation, a government insurance option for everyone and tax hikes. HillaryCare II isn't about "choice,

"but would require financial penalties for people to comply, including garnishing wages. To put it more accurately, the individual mandate is really a government mandate that requires brute force plus huge subsidies to get anywhere near its goal of universal coverage."

Consider: Mitt Romney's mandate program in Massachusetts is already expected to reach $1.35 billion in annual costs by 2011, up from $158 million today. And that's with only half of the previously uninsured currently enrolled.

Most experts calculate that a national mandate with subsidies like Clinton's would enroll about half to two-thirds of the uninsured - but such guesswork is pointless without the basic enforcement assumptions, which Clinton refuses to provide.

The political lesson that Clinton learned in 1994 wasn't about compromise or market forces. It was that a government health-care takeover can only be achieved gradually and by stealth. Her individual mandate is an attempt to force everyone to buy into a highly regulated and price-controlled system where government redistributes income and dictates coverage.

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