This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, April 29th, 2009.

I'm Keelim Brown.

The threat of further government control of health care looms larger than ever

key to President Obama's plans for

nationalized health care is the employer mandate.

Pado Institute adjunct scholar Aaron Yellowith details how employer mandates

function and how they don't.

Employer mandates are when typically a government, the state government, most often,

says to employers, you must either provide health insurance

to your employees or you pay a tax to the state government

so that the state government can provide the health insurance directly.

The genesis for the most recent employer mandates was around 2003 when then Governor Gray Davis signed legislation enacting a fairly burdensome employer

mandate in California right before he was recalled.

So he signed it two days before the election.

And the voters of California in November 2004

by a very narrow margin, 51% to 49% overturned that law.

But that law then became kind of a model for other states

like New York and Washington state.

And then places like Massachusetts have a small employer

mandate in their legislation and places like Maryland also came up with employer mandates as well that have been overturned at the

court level.

Libertarian's are generally not going to be very sympathetic to the idea of a government telling an employer what kind of relationship

...