Legal Commentary

Better Luck Next Time On HCR? Sunset The Mandate

By Big Tent Democrat

Well, health care reform failed yet again. It's not clear what will be in the final bill that President Obama signs before the State of the Union, but it surely will not be health care, or even health insurance, reform. The question becomes will there be another crack at it in the foreseeable future? One way to make sure there is another crack at it would be to sunset the individual mandate portion of the bill (killing the mandates would be preferable but that's not going to happen.)

Given the political power of the insurance industry, the only reason there has been a discussion about health care reform this year is because the carrot of mandates could be dangled. This bill delivers those mandates to the insurance industry. Without that carrot, I can not imagine a time in the near future where health care reform is again taken up. UNLESS, the individual mandates are sunsetted. More . . .

The rationale that could be provided for this would be that it would be unfair to mandate the purchase of insurance if reforms have failed. Accordingly, a mandate sunset could certainly be sold politically and it would insure (pun intended) a revisit of health care reform when the mandates sunset.

Call it a mandated trigger for reconsideration of health care reform. Realistically, this could be ten years after passage (2019). 10 years is a long time I know. But it is shorter than forever.

Then, perhaps, we will have a better Democratic Party. Probably not. But some chance is better than no chance.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 15, 2009 (boomark / email).