Larry Summers, head of President Obama’s National Economic Council, published an interesting paper a few years back. It is entitled “Some Simple Economics of Mandated Benefits.”
Dr. Summers hits the nail on the head in his paper.
Why is the individual health insurance mandate bad?
Is it because it is a massive payout to insurance companies? Is it because it distorts the market? Is it because it will be at a huge cost to the government? Is it because we don’t like to be told what to do, and mandates take away our liberty?
Yes. Particularly on the last note. But those aren’t the primary reason why we dislike the mandate for personal health insurance.
As Dr. Summers put so well, “As with value-added taxes, it can plausibly be argued that mandated benefits fuel the growth of government because their costs are relatively invisible.”
ATR’s purpose is to limit government, by limiting taxation. The invisible costs that are associated with a mandate are a backdoor to expanded government, something that we vehemently oppose. That is why we most strongly disapprove of the individual mandate for health insurance.
Read the rest of Dr. Summers paper here.