The individual mandate, a Republican idea which shows how far to the right the Dems have gone

[HiPointDem]

97. Agreed. Heritage came out for the mandate in 1989. Now they're against it. (Wink, wink)

Element #1: Every resident of the U.S. must, by law, be enrolled in an adequate health care plan to cover major health care costs.

This requirement would imply a compact between the U.S. government and its citizens: in return for the government's accepting an obligation to devise a market-based system guaranteeing access to care and protecting all families from financial distress due to the cost of an illness, each individual must agree to obtain a minimum level of protection. This means that, while government would take on the obligation to find ways of guaranteeing care for those Americans unable to obtain protection in the market, perhaps because of chronic health problems or lack of income, Americans with sufficient means would no longer be able to be "free riders" on society by avoiding sensible health insurance expenditures and relying on others to pay for care in an emergency or in retirement.

Under this arrangement, all households would be required to protect themselves from major medical costs by purchasing health insurance or enrolling in a prepaid health plan. The degree of financial protection can be debated, but the principle of mandatory family protection is central to a universal health care system in America.

Help would be provided in two ways. First, the tax code would be amended, as Chapter 3 describes, to give tax relief to individual purchasers of health insurance or prepaid plans and to provide tax credits for out-of-pocket expenses. Second, government would aid those who, because of income or medical condition, find the cost of protection to be an unreasonable burden. Such aid could take the form of vouchers for purchasing insurance or state-managed systems as described in Chapter 5.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/the-individual-mandates-c_b_1386716.html