Thirty health economists (including some major figures–Arrow, Cutler, Gruber, Newhouse, Pollack…) wrote a letter circulated around Congress explaining the need for the individual mandate. If you haven’t seen it, I think it is one of the better one-page explanations of the issue going:
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires people to buy health insurance when they can afford to do so. This “individual mandate” is essential to address two features of current health insurance markets: the fact that millions of people cannot afford health insurance coverage, and the fact that insurance companies frequently charge high or unaffordable premiums to people who need insurance most-those suffering from costly illness or injury.
This mandate is one of three pillars that together support ACA’s private market approach. The first pillar is insurance market reform – ending the ability of insurance companies to discriminate against sick or injured people with high medical costs. Subsidies to help Americans of modest means gain access to affordable health coverage provide the second pillar. The individual mandate provides the third pillar. It requires people to obtain insurance so long as that coverage is affordable. The mandate expresses a basic obligation of citizenship as well as an economic reality. Without the mandate, some people will choose to gamble or to free-ride, undermining the fairness and financial stability of the health insurance system…..
Few of the uninsured could personally finance medical treatment for a serious illness or injury. Moreover, this country embraces the fundamental principal that everyone should have to minimally decent medical treatment when needed, without regard to ability to pay. Federal legislation and the custom and practice of health care providers embody this principle. A healthy individual’s decision to forego affordable insurance coverage thus imposes real costs on others, while raising premiums on many people with serious medical needs who require the most help….
