Obama, opposing his 2010 plan in 2008: "In order for you to force people to get health insurance, you've got to have a very harsh penalty"

Barack Obama, on Feb. 21, 2008 in a CNN-sponsored Democrat presidential primary debate in Austin, arguing why Hillary Clinton's support for the individual health insurance mandate disqualified her as an acceptable presidential candidate:

"Number one, understand that when Senator Clinton says a mandate, it's not a mandate on government to provide health insurance, it's a mandate on individuals to purchase it. And Senator Clinton is right; we have to find out what works.

Now, Massachusetts has a mandate right now. They have exempted 20 percent of the uninsured because they have concluded that that 20 percent can't afford it.

In some cases, there are people who are paying fines and still can't afford it, so now they're worse off than they were. They don't have health insurance and they're paying a fine. (APPLAUSE)

In order for you to force people to get health insurance, you've got to have a very harsh penalty.

(Later in the debate.) We've got a philosophical difference, which we've debated repeatedly, and that is that Senator Clinton believes the only way to achieve universal health care is to force everybody to purchase it."

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"This is what change looks like."

From CBS News:

Already Insured? Get Ready to Pay More

...But premiums will continue to rise. How much? No one's certain. To pay for this sweeping reform, here's what will change: Those tax-free flexible spending accounts will be cut in half...

Rick Swartz buys his family health plan through work. He's the fleet manager at DH Griffin, America's second-leading demolition company. His health premiums have almost doubled in five years, to more than $9,500 a year.

With this health reform Swartz and his wife Teresa expect their premiums to keep jumping.

"Somebody will have to pay for it - for the uninsured to be insured," Teresa said. "I just don't want it to be the middle class."

David Griffin knows he'll pay more. His family built DH Griffin. But his higher income faces higher taxes.

"We've been successful and we don't feel like we should be penalized the more successful we are," Griffin said. "It's not the American way."

And it's intentional. The entire idea behind forcing insurers to cover people who wait until they are already sick to buy insurance is to send the price of your health insurance plan skyrocketing, and to bankrupt private insurers.

Once Obama and the Democrats succeed in destabilizing the market and creating chaos, the private sector will collapse and Americans will have no choice but to submit to an entirely government-run medical system. How do I know this?

It's what they promised to do.