Reply #76: the system itself

[CTLawGuy]

is such that mandated contributions are necessary, to take advantage of the market-risk shielding aspect of SS. (SS avoids market risk by having people "invest" in a system. Their "investments" are used to pay the returns on previous' "investors'" investments. Because money is not sitting in an account somewhere for 40 years, there is no risk it gets lost in an economic disaster, e.g. the stock market crash of 1929.) Without the mandate, no one would pay into the system, because they could not guarantee that people in the future would voluntarily pay into the system to pay off their "investment."

In a market system, which each pool is independently financed, just making people get some kind of insurance is not very helpful at all. If I run one particular market insurance pool, someone buying insurance in another pool doesn't reduce my cost or provide me with more cash to pay claims. Each pool is independently financed. So a general mandate makes no sense.

Only in a single payer system, where there is one pool, is a mandate necessary to insure that there are enough healthy people to keep that pool financially viable. A mandate to pay into the single pool is very beneficial as it provides enough cash to pay out the fraction of the pool that needs health care.

Also, there is plenty of incentive to buy private health insurance, fear of medical bills, fear of bankruptcy and having ruined credit. This idea that you get free health care for not having insurance CANNOT POSSIBLY BE RATIONAL. Otherwise NO ONE would get insurance. And if taxpayers paid for everything, we'd have a de facto single payer system.