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I've now been able to confirm with multiple senior administration sources that the health care proposal in Obama's budget will have a mandate. Sort of.Here's how it will work, according to the officials I've spoken to. The budget's health care section is not a detailed plan. Rather, it offers financing -- though not all -- and principles meant to guide the plan that Congress will author. The details will be decided by Congress in consultation with the administration. One of those details is "universal" health care coverage. That word is important: The Obama campaign's health care plan was not a universal health care plan. It was close to it. It subsidized coverage for millions of Americans and strengthened the employer-based system. The goal, as Obama described it, was to make coverage "affordable" and "available" to all Americans. But it did not make coverage universal. Affordability can be achieved through subsidies. But without a mandate for individuals to purchase coverage or for the government to give it to them, there was no mechanism for universal coverage. It could get close, but estimates were that around 15 million Americans would remain uninsured. As Jon Cohn wrote at the time, "without a mandate, a substantial portion of Americans [will] remain uninsured."The budget -- and I was cautioned that the wording "is changing hourly" -- will direct Congress to "aim for universality." That is a bolder goal than simple affordability, which can be achieved, at least in theory, through subsidies. Universality means everyone has coverage, not just the ability to access it. And that requires a mechanism to ensure that they seek it.Administration officials have been very clear on what the inclusion of "universality" is meant to communicate to Congress. As one senior member of the health team said to me, "[The plan] will cover everybody. And I don't see how you cover everybody without an individual mandate." That language almost precisely echoes what Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus said in an interview last summer. "I don’t see how you can get meaningful universal coverage without a mandate," he told me. Last fall, he included an individual mandate in the first draft of his health care plan.The administration's strategy brings them into alignment with senators like Max Baucus. Though they're not proposing an individual mandate in the budget, they are asking Congress to fulfill an objective that they expect will result in Congress proposing an individual mandate. And despite the controversy over the individual mandate in the campaign, they will support it. That, after all, is how you cover everybody.The reliance on Congress also helps the administration overcome the hangover from the campaign. During the primaries, Hillary Clinton attacked Obama's health care plan for lacking a mandate and, thus, not covering every American. "If you don't start with the goal of covering everybody," Clinton said, "you'll never get there." In reply, the Obama team struck back with charges that Clinton would "force people to get health insurance" and require "harsh, stiff penalties on those who don’t purchase it." But even in the heat of the campaign, Obama's advisers sought to quietly signal their candidate's openness to an individual mandate. "The fact is," said David Cutler, the Harvard health economist who served as one of Obama's key health care advisers, "the policy differences on the mandate issue aren’t that large at all. Senator Obama believes they’re an option down the road, if other approaches don’t work.” And administration insiders then and now emphasized that the Obama campaign didn't start the mandate fight: They felt blindsided by the attacks and compelled to respond in kind. But it was a question of politics, not of principle. In principle, they were open to a mandate if they could be convinced that it was superior policy and superior politics. Evidently, they're convinced.Image used under a CC license from CAPAF.