A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

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.

Um, what? When your child shows proof of vaccination to school authorities, he/she does so in order to show that he/she will not make the other kids sick by transmitting a disease he/she was not vaccinated for. Unless a lack of insurance is somehow contagious, the same issues do not apply here.

This is, of course, yet another reason for me to reaffirm my membership in the Anti-Universal Coverage Club. Note the observations about people being forced to obtain coverage and the dangers inherent in that approach. We are going down that road and we will regret the destination for all of the reasons that Michael Cannon states.