Joe Klein's latest column serves as a good introduction to Hillary Clinton's most recent health plan, and what separates that plan from those of Clinton's Democratic and Republican rivals. My favorite part of this piece, though, was this:
The other mandate will be far more difficult to impose, however: it requires insurance companies to cover all comers, regardless of age or existing medical conditions. In the trade, this is called community rating, and it will be fought hammer and tongs by the insurance industry. Clinton, Obama and Edwards all require it in their plans; none of the Republicans do. This is where politics intrudes, in the form of a legion of insurance- and medical-industry lobbyists.
Funny, but doesn't politics intrude as soon as Hillary Clinton proposes that Congress pass a law requiring insurers to "cover all comers"? Politics doesn't begin when someone rallies to oppose an intervention that affects them. It begins when someone proposes an intervention that will affect someone else.