So what can we do to get more young people signed up?
I already told you how to do this. At gunpoint, rhetorical or real. It's the only way to make it work as designed, through force.Schlzm
Well...a mandate is exactly that. The Supreme Court ruled the mandate constitutional, in the form of a tax, right?
So, here are my three conclusions:
1. Obamacare is here to stay, for two reasons: first because of the politics which I have already discussed, and second because of the new enrollees. This is even more important than the politics- there are going to be millions of new enrollees once the website is fully functional, most of them older folks with pre-existing conditions that could not obtain insurance before (or at least for a reasonable price.) Once these newbies have insurance, no politician will be willing to take it away from them, just as they don't dare remove Medicare.
2. The new people with pre-existing conditions are going to drive up prices for the rest of us, and this along with cancellations, are going to cause much pain to the middle class.
3. The only way to alleviate that pain is to force young people to purchase insurance, hence the mandate.
However, given the low fee and the question of how it will practically be enforced, it MAY make economic sense at this point for young people not to buy the insurance, and simply be fined.
Assuming these three points are correct, the only logical solution is to raise the penalty to a point where it is no longer economically feasible for a young person not to buy insurance. For instance, we have a $500 fine for every instance of littering- that for the most part causes people not to litter. Make the penalty greater than the cost of insurance- then of course they'll buy it because they have to.
Forcing people to buy insurance is not something that gives me any pleasure. But I don't see any other way out of this mess. If you disagree with any of these points, please let me know where I have gotten it wrong.
