This is a Cato Special Podcast. I'm Caleb Brown. The President's speech to Congress last night

contained in-apt comparisons of health insurance to auto insurance, the importance

of forcing you to buy insurance and the out-of-hand

dismissal of ideas like decoupling employment and health insurance.

But the president, to be sure, says that all good ideas should be on the table.

NATO Senior fellow Mike Tanner comments.

The reality was that President Obama was really speaking to about 100 members of the Democratic Party in the House and the Senate.

Essentially, he was telling the Blue Dogs and the far left of his party that he really, really needed them to get

over it and work together.

Whether or not he was successful in this remains to be seen.

But I think it's much more important that how he handles his own party

than what the overall reaction from the public is. He talked about a public option a little bit but suggested that only 5% of Americans would sign up for it but

somehow this is enough to quote unquote keep the insurance companies honest in his way of thinking.

Well and he's being a little bit disingenuous the way he quotes the Congressional Budget

Office on this.

The legislation says that for the first

couple of years of the public option only individuals and businesses with

fewer than I believe 50 employees can sign up for this.

And Congressional Budget Office says during that period about 5 million people will

switch or but the legislation also gives the Secretary of HHS the discretion to open that up eventually to all employers.

Now if that were to happen, it would be much larger.

The actuarial firm Lewin and, it would be much larger. The actuarial firm, Lewin,

...