The individual mandate to carry health insurance is under the microscope with a very basic question as to whether Congress has the authority to make such a requirement. Frankly, I don’t know the legal answer and given a unanimous verdict by the Supreme Court is unlikely, I guess no one else is 100% certain either. However, it seems to me that there is more than one way to create a mandate.
Take Medicare for example. Do you really have a choice of enrolling in Medicare? The obvious answer is yes you do, but hold on, is it a real choice? If you don’t want Medicare, can you buy other coverage instead? No you can’t, nobody can sell such coverage. Even coverage that supplements Medicare is regulated by the federal government and there is talk of trimming the coverage you can buy to pay your Medicare co-pays and deductibles.
Some people in Congress think too much insurance coverage leads to higher costs … they may have a point.
If you continue to work and have employer health coverage, you must keep your employer coverage even when you turn 65, you can’t use Medicare as your primary coverage even if you wanted to. Before this requirement was part of the Medicare law employers generally required you to use Medicare with the employer plan as supplemental.
If you delay enrolling in Medicare beyond your initial enrollment period, there is a penalty to pay. For Part B that penalty is ten percent for each year of delayed coverage; for Medicare Part D the penalty is 1% for each month you delay enrollment. In addition, you may enroll only during a three-month enrollment period held once each year. The reason for all this is simple; to prevent adverse selection when people enroll in coverage only when they anticipate using the benefits.
It seems that rules and regulations and penalties abound regarding your choices of health care, at least when you are as old as I am.
Granted the above are implicit mandates, but in the final analysis are they much different from the requirement to carry health insurance contained in the Affordable Care Act? This is the same logic used for the individual mandate under the Affordable Care Act; if you don’t take coverage, you pay a penalty to partially offset the additional cost created by those who enroll only when they expect to use the coverage. I am still free to not enroll for health insurance, but rather than pay a surcharge or suffer a delay in coverage when I decide I need it, I am required to pay an upfront penalty.
Such limitations and penalties are designed not to protect the individual, but the pool of insured that must eventually carry the cost burden for less responsible citizens. Boy, I’m glad I am not on the Supreme Court.
This debate all comes down to these rather simple words crafted by our Founders in the Constitution outlining the rights of Congress:
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
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