Is ObamaCare a Government Takeover of Health Care?

The Cato Institute's Michael Cannon says it is: 

Just before the holidays, the fact-checking journalists at PolitiFact.com gave their Lie of the Year award to the claim that ObamaCare is a "government takeover of health care." Backed up by the unanimous judgments of five ObamaCare supporters, PolitiFact declared that notion "simply not true," "inaccurate," and "ridiculously false."

Egad, I thought. I have written entire reports calling ObamaCare a government takeover. I've said it on television, in op-eds, interviews and online. I was spreading the Lie of the Year!

ObamaCare is not a government takeover, I learned from PolitiFact, because it "uses the private health insurance system to expand health care coverage."

But wait. In my research, I found that distinction between public and private to be illusory: what difference is there between a public system where the government taxes and spends your money, and a "private" system where the government forces you to spend your money in the same way?

"It is irrelevant," I wrote, "whether we describe medical resources (e.g., hospitals, employees) as 'public' or 'private.' What matters – what determines real as opposed to nominal ownership – is who controls the resources." I detailed how making private health insurance compulsory – as ObamaCare does – "would give government as much control over the nation's health care sector as a compulsory government program."

Read my response to PolitiFact here.