Eleven Alternatives to Obamacare's Individual Mandate - Businessweek

Eleven Alternatives to Obamacare's Individual Mandate - Businessweek

The short version:

1. Relabel the mandate to escape the high court’s scrutiny. Give people a tax credit if they do carry insurance, which is functionally the same as penalizing them if they don’t. Sound like a sly evasion? It’s essentially the approach advocated by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan.

2. Increase subsidies, such as the law’s existing set of tax credits for low-income Americans, to induce more people to sign up voluntarily. This would be along the lines of the enticements in Medicare Parts B (doctors’ and outpatient services) and D (prescription drugs).

3. Use government funds to compensate insurers for the cost of “adverse selection,” in which only sick people sign onto their plans.

4. Have the government and/or employers enroll people into health plans automatically, but with an option to drop insurance. Count on inertia and procrastination to keep them in the system.

5. Require people who go without insurance to sign a form acknowledging that they won’t be able to get back in for five years, even if they have an accident or contract a costly disease and want to get covered right away.

6. Leave it to the 50 states to enact their own mandates under state law, which would not be subject to Supreme Court review.

7. Penalize people who delay enrolling. Charge them more or strip them of the right to buy insurance at a standard rate regardless of preexisting conditions. There’s a precedent in Medicare: People who enroll in Medicare Part B after age 65 pay a 10 percent penalty on their Part B premium unless they have employer-provided health insurance.

There are more, but these are the more reasonable ones...

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