I basically agree with Dean that while a mandate would have been preferable in Obama's plan, it's entirely possible to create a strong automatic enrollment mechanism, couple it with penalties for evading the enrollment (i.e, you get a worse price later), and achieve much the same effect as a mandate. This would also let Obama rhetorically triangulate the issue -- he could argue against punitive mandates which force everyone into the pool even if they can' afford it, but argue for automatic enrollment, which invites everyone into the pool, and talk up penalties for those who refuse to purchase coverage when cost isn't an issue. The key to all this, though, is the automatic enrollment mechanism, which some of Obama's advisers tell me he has, but which his health care adviser, David Cutler, has specifically disagreed with. Obama never mentions such a feature, and his actual plan doesn't say anything about automatic enrollment, either (I think Dean may be confusing automatic enrollment with something akin to an employer mandate, when the latter really doesn't suffice), so, for the moment, I don't think we can assume it's in there. But I'm going to try and get more specificity on this aspect of it soon.
