From the beginning, I thought the individual mandate to buy health insurance was a mistake

[Tony_FLADEM]

Although health insurance is un affordable today, most people make an effort to buy insurance. If people are getting a subsidy to buy insurance, the number of people getting insurance will increase.

The individual mandate created a talking point that health care reform was heavy handed and a government take over. The individual mandate was more trouble than it was worth.

Now that there is no alternative to private health insurance i.e. the public option, the individual mandate definitely needs to go.

[Vincardog]

1. Second that with no alternative to private health insurance the individual mandate needs to go

[Lerkfish]

2. but the insurance lobbies loves that provision, therefore it will not go

[Vincardog]

3. The parasitic insurance companies need to go.

[Lerkfish]

4. agreed. we need socialized medicine... no need for insurance.

[closeupready]

5. Obama himself made great political hay of Hillary's support for a mandate.

n/t

[JVS]

6. He should have stuck to his original words on it instead of shifting to the current mess

[damntexdem]

7. Unless there is a truly-universal system like sing;e-payer, a mandate is essential.

Of course, in the mess the Senate has now made of HCR, it IS an onerous burden without many benefits to outweigh it.

[Festivito]

8. It's like forcing people to pay for Police and Fire protection, then..

.. taking away the protection from the people required to pay for it.

[On the Road]

9. While an Individual Mandate Will Certainly Cause Problems,

you pretty much have to have one if insurance companies can't use preexisting conditions to disqualify customers. Otherwise, people can just stay uninsured until they get seriously ill.

One way of looking at the individual mandate is that it spreads the costs out over a person's lifetime. Younger people as a whole need to put more in in their healthier years so the system can afford to pay out later in their lives.

There are problems with all of these approaches. It really demostrates why anything short of single payer is bound to be unsatisfactory.

[Nite Owl]

10. Obama campaigned against it

as I recall. Wonder what could have changed his mind?