The so called mandate in health care reform should never have been included in the bill in the first place, and democrats should have seen that coming. It is ironic that an insignificant, one could say irrelevant item in the bill could be the undoing of the entire bill as a federal court recently ruled it wasn't severable. Should that stand, all of the bill is void.
I am incredibly dismayed that the democrats used so clumsy of a sledge hammer despite the warning on the wall that it would be appealed, and that ultimately people like Roberts and Scalia will decide.
Gee, guess how that ends up?
In theory, a mandate is extremely important. The ideal system would take the insurance premium out of general tax revenues as civilized countries do, but this is America, after all.
The next best thing is a strong mandate. The penalty should have been as large as the insurance bill itself. Otherwise with the weak mandate as written the system could still be gamed.
It irks me to no end to hear pundits on both sides declare the importance of the mandate, when actually as written, there really wasn't much of one at all.
What should replace the mandate? Why, a one year waiting period on pre-existing conditions of course. That sort of system which has been in place for decades works nicely. As long as you are continuously insured (by anybody) there wouldn't be any waiting period.
Its equivalent to a mandate, only you are coerced instead of forced to keep up your insurance.
And if only congress had had the foresight to use a lever instead of a symbolic slegdgehammer, health reform would now be an unstoppable train.
Its a crying shame.