Morning Bell: Mandates Are The Opposite Of Choice

Conn Carroll / September 02, 2009

August has been a brutal month for advocates of government-run health care. According to a new CNN poll, for the first time in his presidency, a majority of independents (53%) now disapprove of how President Barack Obama is handling his job. And a majority of all Americans (53%) also disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling health care. Responding to these new facts on the ground, senior Obama officials are now telling Politico that when Obama does finally detail the specifics of what he wants to see in a health care bill, the public option will not be included.

Instead, according to Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, President Obama will focus on health reform that will “create competition and choice.” Axelrod’s focus groups must love that phrase, because the White House has been selling Obamacare as “choice and competition” for some time now. Unfortunately, even without the public option, the other pillars of Obamacare (federal regulation of health insurance, massive new taxpayer-funded subsidies, and employer and individual mandates) will all decrease, not increase, Americans’ health care choices. (more…)