Individual health insurance mandates have lately been hailed as the solution to the health care crisis in America. Mandates to buy health insurance have been included in legislative proposals at the state level – for instance, by Gov. Schwarzenegger and Speaker Nunez, in their “Health Care Security and Cost Reduction Act”, or at the federal level, by Hillary Clinton in her “American Health Choice Plan”. Can mandates achieve universal access to health care and control rising costs of medical care? This article explains why they can’t.
Lately, legislation including a universal mandate – a legal obligation that everybody purchase a health insurance policy – has been hailed as the solution to the health care crisis in America. At the state level, mandates have been included, for instance, in Gov. Schwarzenegger and Speaker Nunez’s “Health Care Security and Cost Reduction Act”, and at the federal level, by Hillary Clinton in her “American Health Choice Plan”. Yet many of us remain skeptical. Why? After all, if everybody is forced to buy a health insurance plan – maybe with a subsidy if you are “poor enough” – would this not resolve the problem of uninsurance? Maybe so. But the real question is: would mandating universal health insurance guarantee universal access to medical care? And the short answer is no.
