With a lone Republican vote — Maine's Senator Olympia Snowe — another of the multitude of health insurance "reform" bills moving through Congress has cleared committee, in this case Chairman Max Baucus's (D-MT) Finance Committee.  The bill is less government-centric than some of the other bills that have passed various committees in the House and Senate, in that while it does impose a personal mandate to purchase health insurance and new taxes, the bill does not contain the so-called "public option" — the establishment of a government-run health insurance plan to "compete" with private insurance plans.

Of course, the Baucus plan does not remove the government mandates and prohibitions that currently serve to limit competition:  prohibitions from buying across state lines that would increase competitions and allow individuals to escape costly minimum coverage state mandates; group plans that would enable organizations like the American Diabetes Association, the American Institute of Architects, or even the NAACP from pooling members together and negotiating group rates for its members; or changes in the tax code that would provide individuals with the same tax advantages to buy their own insurance that corporations have to provide it for them, that would make health insurance portable as well as allow for greater individual choice.  None of the Democratic plans offer these fundamental (and inexpensive) reforms that would lessen the impact of government in favor of empowered individuals and families.

But even though Baucus's plan does increase government intrusion, particularly with the personal mandate (for which I can find no Constitutional justification), it is receiving criticism from many desiring a more intrusive, statist "reform".  And in one sense, the criticisms from the left are correct.  In establishing a government mandate that each person must buy health insurance (with subsidies provided to those who "can't afford" coverage), the health insurance corporations are getting a tremendous boost.  What could be better for any business than having the government force people to buy your product?

Often during the health insurance debate, when mandates are criticized, advocates of government expansion pull out the example of auto insurance, and state mandates that one must purchase certain minimum insurance.  However, this is not a good analogy for several reasons.  First of all, nobody actually is forced to buy auto insurance — only those who wish to operate vehicles on roads paid for and owned by the public; thus, the public decides what protections of public property are necessary to use those roads; if I do not wish to drive, or wish to drive only on my own private property, I require no such license. 

Secondly, auto insurance is a competitive market; there are state licensing requirements for insurance companies that can be used to protect bigger companies from competition, but because it is purchased individually, there is much competition.  And, while there are minimum requirements by the state imposed for the protection of the property of others should a driver cause a wreck, there are no such impositions on what one must get for coverage of one's own vehicle (although most banks do impose such requirements to procure a loan, again, this is voluntary, as no one is forced to buy a car or to get a loan to do so).  A car insurance customer has free reign to shop around with various competing companies (no "public option" provided) and mix and match coverage options.  Also note that auto insurance is used for big ticket or catastrophic expenses.  Oil changes, wiper blades, and new tires aren't the purview of auto insurance.

Thirdly, it isn't the federal government providing the mandates to citizens to buy auto insurance, but rather state governments.  I personally disagree with the decision in Massachusetts to establish an individual mandate; however, as Madison explains in

Federalist 45, the state governments have much wider latitude than the federal government:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

The states were expected to establish different policies and laws, with people able to "vote with their feet" should a state government become oppressive or incompetent.  Thus while I disagree with high taxes in Michigan and California, the state governments are well within their rights to implement bad policies on a broad range of "numerous and indefinite" issues.  Not so the federal governments, whose powers are "few and defined" — with no authority for a personal mandate mentioned in the Constitution.

Mandates by a state government forcing individuals to purchase health insurance are misguided, counter-productive, and oppressive; those same mandates by the federal government are all those things, but add  "un-Constitutional" to the list.  A state could choose to establish a single-payer government plan if it so chose; the federal government has no such authority.

Whether or not any of the proposed health care plans will pass either House of Congress, much less both, is still uncertain.  Let's hope that in the name of "reform", we don't get the imposition of more mandates that limit the choices of individuals and families to define their own health care coverage.