The Wall Street Journal examines Barack Obama's record on healthcare and finds some troubling results in his obsession with mandates:

Laughing gas can be useful during complicated dental procedures, but should every health plan be required to cover it and should health insurance cost more because of it?

Barack Obama thinks so. As a state senator in Illinois, he voted to require that dental anesthesia be covered by every health plan for difficult medical cases.
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By my count, during Mr. Obama's tenure in the state Senate, 18 different laws came up for a vote and passed that imposed new mandates on private health insurance. Mr. Obama voted for all of them.

As a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama says people lack health insurance because "they can't afford it." He's right. But he is also partly responsible for why health insurance is too expensive. A long list of studies show that mandates like the ones Mr. Obama has championed drive up the cost of insurance for the very people priced out of coverage.
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A 2008 study by an insurance-industry supported research organization, the Council for Affordable Health Insurance (CAHI), estimates that mandates increase the cost of basic health coverage by 20% to 50%, depending on the state. Average policies in high-mandate New Jersey cost about $4,000 according to a 2004 insurance survey, much more than the $1,200 charged in low-mandate Wyoming.