Individual mandate’s drawbacks getting national attention, finally

All the current health reform bills being considered in Washington include an individual mandate, requiring every resident to have health coverage – either through a public program like HUSKY or, if not eligible, people will have to buy it. The only open question is whether they will have a publicly run option to purchase insurance from, or if our only options will all be privately run companies. Until now, the extraordinary dilemma this places working families in, with incomes too high for subsidies but too low to afford any insurance worth what you pay for it, has been ignored. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal takes a good look at how the mandate will “squeeze those in the middle” – exactly the families that are bearing the brunt of the current economic crisis. WSJ highlights the McDonalds, a family caught in this Catch-22 by MA’s individual mandate. For our analysis of how difficult and unfair an individual mandate would be for CT families, go to our policymaker brief or longer analysis.
Ellen Andrews