OBAMA AND MANDATES. Great catch by Ben Smith over at The Politico, who finds Obama telling an audience last year, "It's time to accept that we must offer some form of basic health care to every American. Health care should be like auto insurance - mandatory for all Americans. A larger pool of subscribers would drive down health care costs." He's right! So what changed? Well, he's running for president. And mandates make some folks uncomfortable. They're somewhat controversial, and they can force health care purchasing on individuals who would prefer to remain outside the system, or covered by barebones plans (at least until they get in an accident, and we all pay for their care). For that reason, I'm unconvinced that by Smith's interpretation of this, that "it's interesting to see that [Obama's] instinct was apparently toward individual mandates, before his wonky friends at the University of Chicago convinced him that there's a better -- if, perhaps, less easily sold -- way." My hunch is that it's quite the opposite. I know nary a health policy expert who doesn't believe you need a mandate of some kind. But I know more than a few who are leery of the political consequences of mandates (albeit in a general election rather than primary). My guess isn't that anyone convinced the campaign that there's a better way than mandates -- Obama certainly didn't offer an alternative policy solution -- but that someone convinced the campaign that they'd be better off politically without a mandate. That's actually a very defensible approach, just not one I agree with. I should add,that Obama's staff is firm in upholding that they'd happily revisit the mandate issue later on, and that Obama's commitment is to full coverage by the end of his first term. I'm skeptical, though, that after passing a universal health care bill that fails to deliver on its promises, Obama will have the capital to come back to Congress in three years and ask for a purely punitive measure to enhance coverage. Maybe I'm wrong. --Ezra Klein