September 17, 2009 2:17PM 

# That Costly Mandate 

By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) 

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The [*Wall Street Journal* notes that](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204518504574416930475823324.html) Sen. Max Baucus’s allegedly moderate health care plan “would increase the cost of insurance and then force people to buy it, requiring subsidies. Those subsidies would be paid for by taxes that make health care and thus insurance even more expensive, requiring even more subsidies and still higher taxes.” Other than that, it’s not so bad. The *Journal* also digs up a great graphic produced by the 2008 presidential campaign of a little-known Illinois senator named Barack Obama:

![hillarycare](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/wp-content/uploads/hillarycare1.jpg?itok=G7vCUXBf) 

And speaking of [health care mandates and how much they’re going to cost young people](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/15/AR2009091503716.html), as the *Washington Post* was yesterday, I just had lunch with Clark Ruper, program manager for [Students for Liberty](http://www.studentsforliberty.org/), who told me he’d be [on the *Newshour with Jim Lehrer* on PBS tonight](http://www.studentsforliberty.org/news/students-for-liberty-on-pbs-this-thursday/). In the interview he told them that as a young healthy person he has voluntarily chosen not to purchase health insurance and instead invests in his own savings. And he thinks a lot of young people make such choices and don’t want a government mandate requiring them to buy government-approved insurance. Check it out tonight on PBS.

##### Related Tags 

[Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) 

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