This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, February 4th, 2008.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Clinton Care, Romney Care, and the recently defeated Schwarzenegger Care all have one thing in common

an individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

Clinton care never made it.

Romney care is in trouble and Californians may have just dodged a bullet.

Michael Cannon, Cato's director of health policy studies, gives his take.

What the California Senate did recently was reject a plan that had been put together by Governor

Schwarzenegger and Speaker of the House Nunez that had a lot of different

components to it. Primarily it would have required all California residents to obtain health

insurance. It would have put price controls on the health insurance that they

could purchase. It would have included some subsidies enabling low-income

Californians to afford health insurance and it would have required employers to

offer health insurance to their workers or pay special tax. Now the reason that the California

Senate rejected this actually is a committee that the bill was sent to a

committee after it passed the House was that this plan would have cost several billion

dollars at the very time that California was facing a $14 billion budget deficit. So not a single Republican

supported on the committee supported the plan and there's a lot of obviously a lot

of opposition from Democrats as well and that's why the plan failed.

What comes along with an individual mandate generally?

The California mandate would have worked much like the Massachusetts

mandate works.

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