I Get Results: Hillary & Health Care

Last week, during my liveblogging of the big debate, I wrote:

8:25: More health care. Obama, back to mandates. I have to say that Obama is objectively right on this point. If you want everybody covered, go for single payer—that's what I'd like to see—but if you won't go for single payer, it makes no sense to try and jury-rig universal coverage through punishment mechanisms and fines. What is Clinton's mechanism for enforcement, by the way? Has this ever been explained?

Today on The Week George Stephanopoulos (obviously a reader) finally got an answer out of Clinton about how she'll enforce her mandates:

The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC's "This Week," she said: "I think there are a number of mechanisms" that are possible, including "going after people's wages, automatic enrollment."

Clinton said such measures would apply only to workers who can afford health coverage but refuse to buy it, which puts undue pressure on hospitals and emergency rooms. With her proposals for subsidies, she said, "it will be affordable for everyone."

This just isn't a winning line, not in the general and I suspect not even in the primary. Taking money out of people's paychecks to pay for insurance they don't want in the first place isn't how we get to universal health care; single-payer is. Since single-payer (sadly) isn't on the table under either plan, an optional low-cost plan strikes me as a much easier sell than a mandatory low-cost one. A plan that automatically garnishes people's wages for health insurance would never, ever pass Congress.

Once Obama's program is in place and successful, it will be much easier to start motivating people to enroll in it, slowly building the critical mass that it will take to ever get us to single payer. A plan that never passes can never get to this Stage II. I know a lot of lefty people think Barack is wrong on health care, but I wish they'd take a second look.

Via Marc Ambinder and Daily Kos.