Denver Metro Young Republicans

Looks like Hillary! is trying to one-up John Edwards’ call for mandatory regular medical and mental health checkups by requiring everyone to have health insurance…or starve:

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that a mandate requiring every American to purchase health insurance was the only way to achieve universal health care but she rejected the notion of punitive measures to force individuals into the health care system.

“At this point, we don’t have anything punitive that we have proposed,” the presidential candidate said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We’re providing incentives and tax credits which we think will be very attractive to the vast majority of Americans.”

She said she could envision a day when “you have to show proof to your employer that you’re insured as a part of the job interview — like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination,” but said such details would be worked out through negotiations with Congress.

Clinton unveiled her health care plan Monday in Iowa, promising to bring coverage to every American by building on the current employer-based system and using tax credits to make insurance more affordable.

Oh no, there’s no plan to punish those who fail to join Hillarycare II. Yet. But what kind of mandate would this “individual mandate” be without penalties to reinforce its mandatoryness?

Despite her protestations, the wannabe Nanny In Chief is already looking ahead, envisioning a day when the power of the federal government may be used to compel participation in the program by barring those who choose to opt out of it from employment. Just how is this plan compatible with individual liberty? And she has the nerve to call this compulsion her “Medical Choices Program”.

An interesting paradox: just how does she expect those people without privately-purchased health insurance to purchase their own in order to qualify for employment, if they can’t get a job to make the money to buy the insurance they have to have to get a job? (The answer is: she doesn’t. They’ll be covered by subsidies and/or Medicare — a government program despite her protestations to the contrary — paid for by tax increases on those she considers to be “rich”.)

More details here. This little throwaway line ought to give one pause:

Clinton adviser Laurie Rubiner said the mandate could be enforced in a number of ways, such as denying certain tax deduction to those who refused to buy insurance. But she stressed that a specific mechanism would be worked out once the plan was passed.

In other words, she intends to sell the scheme to Congress and the public first, dismissing concerns about how compliance will be enforced while focusing attention on the free goodies and the chance to stick it to “The Rich”…and once the deal is struck, she’ll bring out the whip.

I’d ask whether she really thinks we’re stupid enough to sell our souls without even having a copy of the fine print (let alone reading it first), but I think she does…and for far too many people, I think she’d be right.