Hillary's health care plan is only a mandate

Hillary Clinton is attacking Barack Obama because she says her plan is the only one that covers all Americans.  That is debatable.  In reality, her plan is just a mandate, and wouldn't necessarily lower the cost of health care.  It only requires every American to purchase private health insurance.

This morning, the New York Times' Katharine Seelye compared Hillary's health plan to the mandate on auto insurance.  Even though all Americans are required to get auto insurance, 15% still lack it.  So what makes Hillary's supporters think that all Americans would get covered under her health care mandate?:

Mandates rarely achieve 100 percent compliance. In addition, they are almost impossible to enforce.

Because of those difficulties, Mrs. Clinton’s own plan would probably leave out millions.

Mandates have not worked with auto insurance. While all drivers arerequired to have it, 15 percent of the nation’s drivers have none,according to the Insurance Research Council.

Mr. Obama’s healthplan could actually have a better compliance rate. The 15 million whowould supposedly be left out equal about 5 percent of the population —a smaller portion than are going without auto insurance, said JosephAntos, a health policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, anonpartisan group.

In other words, if the compliance rate is the same as auto insurance, Obama's plan would leave out 5% of Americans while Hillary's plan would leave out 15%.

Also, Obama's plan goes deeper than just getting Americans insured -- it focuses more on lowering costs.