Jacob Hacker, who created the basic structure that both the Obama and Clinton plans rely on, weighs in on the mandate issue today telling everybody to basically calm down. Contrary to what many of my readers probably assume, I actually agree with that take. Jacob doesn't detail the underlying dispute here as fully as he might, but the basic genesis of this argument is that most of us thought Obama's health plan was basically fine, if a bit worse than Clinton's, but got pissed Obama started going after the very idea of a mandate and sending out mailers reminiscent of Harry and Louise. Put differently, it was the politics, rather than the policy, that forced the argument. But if the politics calm down, the policy isn't objectionable enough to continue spending time on.
