health care mandates

"which he calls universal but which doesn't include a requirement that everyone purchase coverage, as hers does."

I'd like to know what happens if someone doesn't purchase health care coverage. What if they can afford it, but would rather buy more useful things (for them), such as training, education or housing. It is not up to the government to decide for us what our money is best used for always. It is true that we as individuals can be wasteful. But sometimes we are prudent, in comparison to government. Certainly a free market is apt to greater efficiency than a government mandate. So the two pertinent questions are, what happens if you don't buy it. And two, how do they enforce it. Even state mandates for auto insurance do not have even 85% compliance in some states. Considering the incorrect (inflated and useless, for reasons already examined) 47 million figure, that's roughly 15% of the total population anyway. So what's the difference? The other ~85% that do buy it now have more red tape, less options, and an industry that will have to supply something that people will have to have.. meaning it will be able to (and probably have to) raise prices anyway or go out of business.

People who have insurance tend to use it. Especially health insurance, which is seen as a right of use. The net effect is that it probably isn't a very profitable industry without some way to recover costs. Car insurance, people don't get into wrecks every year and make claims. Most people get sick and even without that, will go get routine stuff done or monitored, especially as they age. Hillary's plan destroys the ability or interest of the young to take care of their health because they will in effect be subsidizing the old. She makes the insurance companies charge the same amounts regardless of any underwriting they would normally do to compete on price. This is again economic suicide for an entire industry. It is necessary for insurance, an industry based on measuring risks, to offer price discrimination based on those risks. People with very complex or deadly illnesses that require expensive treatment or invasive procedures probably should expect to pay more for insurance over time, with the notion that it will be still cheaper than not having insurance at all because they are already spreading their own individual risks over a very large population. The idea that this is somehow 'unfair' ignores some vital points. True that people born with or who develop at an early age complications may be at a severe disadvantage. It should be possible for a insurance company to take into account the age and other overall health factors of a person and offer some means of providing coverage, albeit at still a substantial premium. To me it strikes me as substantially less fair to charge the remainder of a healthy population much higher premiums to cover these few. This happens anyway to a degree. But this has the effect of alienating people who do pay and do not really 'need' the coverage (and making it harder for them to get it approved when it is) and not at all encouraging or rewarding them for making healthy choices for themselves. Health insurance is not necessarily in the health care business, but it could be allied in some way by providing some incentive in a positive direction. This in the long run is in the health insurance company's best interest anyway as it lowers the amounts they pay out when their clients are healthy. I do not see that they are in the business of discouraging health, but it's not a clear battle for health yet either.