This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, August 31st, 2010. I'm Caleb Brown. You could call

it the Human Rightsification of health care. The Obama administration is claiming a victory on human rights in its expansion of the

government's role in health care

michle kennon director of health policy studies at the kato institute believes there

are at least a few human rights problems

in the new health care law itself. The United States is engaging in a human rights

audit with the United Nations. A lot of nations are going through this. They're pouring

over their human rights record and the Obama administration has

submitted a report to the United Nations on the US track record with human rights and one of the

accomplishments that the Obama administration claims the United States has

made toward promoting human rights is passing the health care

law that President Obama signed back in March of this year. That law, the centerpiece of that law, requires Americans to purchase health insurance,

and if they don't purchase health insurance, they'll be subject to fines and possibly jail time.

So it's very ironic that the Obama administration is citing this

as an example of progress on human rights

because for the first time in America's history you could be put in

jail for not purchasing a health insurance policy.

During the run-up to the passage of the health care law it seemed like the

Obama administration and all the people who are pushing

this specific piece of legislation were avoiding specifically that kind of

talk about this law that is the human rights argument.

President or I should say candidate Obama, was certainly attuned to the unfairness of this law.

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