Reply #61: "Other than that, you're free to play the odds" - not if we want a system that works for everyone.

[Warren Stupidity]

A system that works for everyone requires everyone who is able to pay into the shared risk pool to pay into the shared risk pool. It can't work if healthy people are allowed to opt out and only unhealthy people are in the pool. That is why there has to be a "mandate" either the awful one in the current legislation that requires one to buy private health insurance, or a much more reasonable one that would expand the existing MEDICARE MANDATE - i.e. the shit taken out of your paycheck every week that is FICA but not SS - to put everyone into the medicare system.