Looking Ahead to the Health Insurance Mandate Debate

Looking Ahead to the Health Insurance Mandate Debate in Individual Health Insurance

In the past few months of the health insurance and health care debate, most of the discussion revolved around whether or not we should have a public government-run health plan inserted into the private market.

The status of that debate, of course, is still ongoing.

But there’s a budding debate that we predict will take a front-and-center stage very soon. It’s the notion of an individual mandate which requires all Americans to carry some form of health insurance.

Now, there are a lot of different arguments to this gem of a topic, so today, we’ll just lay out the groundwork so we can discuss all the puzzle pieces as the debate happens.

Here are some of the debate topics:

• Is an individual mandate constitutional?
  Already, some have brought this into light. It could be a Supreme Court type of case where they have to decide whether the federal government can constitutionally enforce such a law. Then there’s the question of whether allowing a mandate would set a precedent for future mandates by the federal government.
 
• How should you enforce the mandate?
  Senator Olympia Snowe was able to push through an amendment that delays and reduces a fine for Americans who defy the individual mandate. Under Senator Snowe’s amendment, the maximum fine for a family is $200 in 2014, rising to $800 in 2017. Another point of debate will be how the government will be able to identify those who could afford health insurance, but choose not to buy coverage.
 
• What would an individual mandate mean for the private health insurance industry?
  With a new customer pool of some 40 million Americans, an individual mandate would mean the private industry would vastly increase. We’re hoping all this does is lead to increased competition for these new customers, improving quality and reducing price.
 
• What does the mandate mean politically?
  For President Obama, an individual mandate for everyone is a bit hairy. The president ran in the primary (against Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) upon the idea that we shouldn’t have a mandate for all. He’ll have to do a fancy political dance to avoid this potentially damaging policy.

There’s probably going to be a lot more on the individual mandate, and we’ll try to keep up on it.

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