The major Democratic candidates, along with some left-leaning pundits, are battling over whether to require people to buy health care. That’s unfortunate because mandates are the least important and least popular parts of their plans.

The current Democratic consensus on health care is striking. In fact, given the myriad ways universal health insurance might otherwise be organized – single payer, employer mandate, vouchers, tax credits – it’s astonishing. All of the major health insurance proposals require employers either to provide coverage to employees or contribute to the cost of coverage; create purchasing pools that will offer insurance to anyone who doesn’t get it from an employer; preserve freedom of choice of doctor; cover children; and aim to save money through more preventive care, better management of chronic disease, and standardized information technology. And all subsidize lower-income families with revenues coming from letting the Bush tax cuts expire.

Mandates are a sideshow. All their plans would cover a large majority of those who currently lack insurance. A big chunk of the remainder are undocumented immigrants, who aren’t covered by any of the plans. So mandates are relevant to only around 3 percent of the population.

Hillary Clinton thinks this 3 percent is mostly young and healthy and should be required to buy insurance in order to bring costs down for everyone who isn’t. Obama thinks they’re mostly people who won’t be able to afford even subsidized premiums, so they’d just ignore any mandate. As a practical matter, the difference comes down to timing and sequencing. Clinton wants to start with a mandate. Obama says if it turns out most of this remaining 3 percent are young and healthy, he’ll go along with a mandate, too.

It’s only to be expected that gloves will come off in the last months of a primary campaign. But by warring over mandates, Democrats are leading with their chins. It’s the least important aspect of what they’re offering. It’s also, to many Americans, the least attractive because it conjures up a big government bullying people into doing what they’d rather not do.

The public is ready for universal health insuranc, but to get it enacted after January, 2009, Democrats need to start building a movement in support of the big and important reforms universal health insurance requires – on which they happen to agree.