June 3, 2011 11:08AM 

# That’s Not Healthy: Poverty Is a Salve for ObamaCare’s Individual Mandate? 

By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) 

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Some tidbits from the health care policy world:

- Philip Klein is perhaps too kind to the Obama administration’s latest defense of [ObamaCare](cato.org/bad-medicine/) in “[Obama solicitor general: If you don’t like mandate, earn less money](http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/06/obama-solicitor-general-if-you-dont-mandate-earn-less-money).”
- The Obama administration launches [a hospital payment reform effort](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/health/policy/31hospital.html) that, rather than promote high-quality, low-cost medical care, will demonstrate once again why Medicare is incapable of such.
- The physicians lobby, having thrown its support behind ObamaCare with the expectation that Congress would jack up Medicare’s physician price controls, is still [begging](http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/PHY-266123/Lawmakers-Seek-SGR-Alternatives-But-Who-Will-Pay) Congress to do so.
- The Obama administration launches [a lame effort](http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/TEC-266902/PPC-Final-Rule-Limits-Provider-Payments) to reduce medical errors in Medicaid, decades after markets devised far more powerful deterrents.

##### Related Tags 

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

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