If you watched last week?s health-care reform debate at Campbell University Law School, you might have noticed this key element of Adam Searing?s prescription for overhauling the current health-care system:
Some individuals should buy health insurance, and they choose not to, even though they can afford it. I think the idea is that if we?re all going to be in this together, we?re going to need to require everybody to contribute ? the government, so that the very poorest people can get coverage, big businesses so that they cannot get an unfair advantage over other businesses by not offering coverage, and individuals who are going to have to pay into the system so that they can buy affordable coverage.
The latest Business Week reminded me of that remark, with an article discussing the debate about how large a penalty the government would need to assess to force people into buying insurance they don?t want.
It?s a good thing Joe Coletti and others are pushing better ideas.
