Hillary unveiled the broad outlines of her health care plan today, and I asked Michael Tanner, director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute, for his thoughts. (His initial take can be found here, and is Cato colleague, Michael Cannon, wrote a bit about the downsides of individual mandates.)

I asked whether Hillary’s 2007 plan is significantly different from her 1993-1994 plan.

“In its key concepts, it’s the same,” Tanner said. “Instead of her original regional plan idea, you have this giant nationwide pool. Right she’s not ostensibly requiring people to currently drop their current coverage, but when all is said and done, I’m not necessarily sure that’s going to be the case. You’re going to see some differences around the edges, but this is still managed competition, with government mandated requirements for community-rated plans, and with the government setting benefits.”

I asked about the difference in an individual mandate required by a state, like in Massachusetts or California, and an individual mandate required by the federal government.

“It’s bigger and scarier,” Tanner said. “Even putting aside the liberty concerns, once they say you have to buy health insurance, you have the question of, ‘what meets the definition of health insurance?’ Is my $100,000 deductible considered health insurance? You end up having to meet mandates, and the government starts setting requirements – you can’t have more than a $2,000 deductible, you have to cover prescription drugs, you have to have this, you have to have that or else it won’t meet mandate… Once you start regulating that, the special interests start demanding that they be included, and you inevitably end up with ever larger costs to the program, and ever-higher subsidies to help people afford it. Or you have to cap premiums, which she hinted she might do. The individual mandate is first domino leading to a lot more regulation.”

I asked about that iconic chart, offered by Rep. Dick Armey, that displayed the Byzantine complications of the health care system envisioned by Hillary Clinton, and whether it would still apply.

“She has cut back on the visible complications,” Tanner said, noting, “I think she’s sufficiently vaguer. There are very few details on how this would really work. For example, she says she says this plan creates no new bureaucracies. Fine. Then how is she going to monitor how many Americans have this required health insurance or not? How is she going to track whether every person in and out of employment market is covered by a plan? How will she determine if they have their plans proper level of coverage? All of that without any new bureaucracy? I don’t believe it.”

I asked whether a President Hillary could pass this plan, or something like it, if the Democrats keep the House and Senate in 2008.

“It’s certainly not inconceivable,” he concluded. “Republicans can block it, and they will have filibuster. The question is, does the GOP have the courage to do it? Right now, some people are questioning if Republicans have the courage to get up and get out of bed in the morning.”