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The Investor’s Business Daily observes, based on reading the proposed law, that Obama will outlaw private health care.

Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.

When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.

It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of “Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage,” the “Limitation On New Enrollment” section of the bill clearly states:

“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day” of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won’t be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

Setting aside specific legal interpretations of this document, the concern of a public war on the private sector, with commensurate loss of individual freedom and choice, is very legitimate. The public attack on the private is what always happens. Public schools snarl at the notion that parents should have a say in the education of their children, and home schoolers are regularly under attack. People flock to escape from public services wherever they can, choosing private schools over public, private package services over the Post Office, private transport over public transport, private pools over public pools, you name it. Do I need to mention the poor reputation attached to public housing or public toilets? The failure of public services, in spite of their being “free” or subsidized (by you!), is a great embarrassment to controlling bureaucrats and coddled unions. You can see why they’d rather there be no competing options to make them look bad.

In Canada, the province of Quebec actually outlawed private health insurance in order to assure that no one (except very wealthy people) could escape from government health care. This bit of oppression was challenged in the courts, but the attitude of exclusive government control still prevails. That’s clearly the attitude of this Administration.