New at Reason: Peter Suderman on the Madness of Health-Insurance Mandates

October 9, 2009

Over the summer, the health-care debate focused on the controversy over the so-called "public option"—a government-run insurance plan intended to offer a low-cost alternative to private insurers. But squabbling over the public plan has diverted attention away from the true centerpiece of all current reform efforts: an individual mandate requiring every American to buy health insurance. Yet as Associate Editor Peter Suderman writes, even without any form of public option, a nationwide mandate opens the door to de facto government control over the entire insurance industry—while potentially killing off the low-cost plans that could truly revolutionize American medicine.

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