In the video below, Claire McCaskill and Howard Dean talk about the 112th Congress.
The last thing mentioned in the video is people's dislike of the healthcare mandate, which says everyone has to have health insurance. That part of the law doesn't take effect until 2014. The law ensures that people with lower incomes would get assistance in paying for health insurance.
The mandate, which Obama didn't support at first, wasn't put into place so that the government could control people. It was put into place to create a larger pool of people paying insurance. That way more people could be covered, especially people with pre-existing conditions, and theoretically, we would all pay lower rates.
But a lot of people don't like the idea of being told they have to buy healthcare insurance, which is the case in Missouri, where McCaskill is from. She suggests that there might be other ways to increase the healthcare pool without having a mandate. Dean also says the mandate needs to go.
