One of the concerns about the Affordable Care Act (AKA ObamaCare) is that young people will not sign up because that they are will conclude that the tax penalty ($98 or 1% of salary) is a better deal than the healthcare premiums.
There are two ways to look at the issue, either the tax is too low or the insurance is too high. I would argue that the insurance is too expensive. The reason the insurance is too expensive is that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) larded up the required benefits package their vision of what we needed. These were decisions made without our input and against our will. I was not consulted on the insurance package I am required by law to purchase and I will penalized if I do not comply with their requirements. My health is my responsibility.
The second problem is that the IOM does not understand insurance. Do you buy car insurance to pay for maintain your brakes and change your oil? Does your homeowners insurance cover routine replacement of your roof and painting your house? No, it covers catastrophic events, like an auto accident or storm damage. Why does the IOM require, if you pardon the analogy, the equivalent of routine maintenance? My doctor charges $150 per office visit, which is cheaper than most auto repairs. One is covered by insurance and the other is not.
Younger people who already have their own insurance are finding a doubling or tripling of their premiums. Most of them had previously opted, wisely, for catastrophic coverage. By forcing a one size fits all package of benefits, the cost has been significantly increased. The Affordable Care Act also narrows the age band compression ratio from 5:1 to 3:1, in other words an insurance policy of an older person cannot be charged more than three times the cost of younger persons insurance. This law forces our children, once again, to subsidize the elderly, making it much more difficult to establish themselves and their families. (See url
http://americanactionforum.org/research/premium-increases-for-young-invincibles-under-the-aca-and-the-impending#_ftn2)
Advocates also confuse health insurance with health care. Do you really want to punish people who do not buy health insurance, but cover their own medical costs out of pocket? There are other ways to fund insurance costs; Medical Savings Accounts, Concierge Medicine, and annuities. Concierge medicine monthly fees run from $50 a month to $25,000 a year, with $135 to $150 per month being the national average. (See url
http://profitable-practice.softwareadvice.com/should-you-consider-concierge-medicine-0413/) Do we really want to penalize these people because they don't have the right insurance as decided by the IOM?
Lastly, is this the society we want to live in and leave our children? Where people are punished if they do not conform to the standards set by a panel of experts. Can we maintain a free and dynamic society where government control is maximized while individual responsibility is minimized? A free people don't need mandates, they need options.