As far as I can tell, this is aimed mostly at the 18 to 35 year olds who roll the dice and don't buy health insurance if they feel it's too expensive or if it's not offered by their employer.
Getting them to sign up would be a good thing for the insurance industry, because their premiums would be coming into the pool of money the insurance companies have and would balance out the expensive sick and older people. Younger people don't use nearly as much health services as older people. So it's great to have their business.
You have to make it mandatory or people won't do it.
Basically the options were: Make the government the insurer (the "single payer" system that was considered impossible and unsuitable for the USA), put the onus on employers to offer affordable coverage, or put the onus on the individual (like car insurance.)
From what I've been reading, this individual requirement for coverage was something various people from all sides of the political spectrum were advocating throughout these debates about how to cover the uninsured. The analogy to car insurance was used a lot.
no subject
Getting them to sign up would be a good thing for the insurance industry, because their premiums would be coming into the pool of money the insurance companies have and would balance out the expensive sick and older people. Younger people don't use nearly as much health services as older people. So it's great to have their business.
You have to make it mandatory or people won't do it.
Basically the options were: Make the government the insurer (the "single payer" system that was considered impossible and unsuitable for the USA), put the onus on employers to offer affordable coverage, or put the onus on the individual (like car insurance.)
From what I've been reading, this individual requirement for coverage was something various people from all sides of the political spectrum were advocating throughout these debates about how to cover the uninsured. The analogy to car insurance was used a lot.