Some People Get It - Wise Beyond Their Years

They understand the flaws and hacks. m/r

Wise Beyond Their Years | The Weekly Standard

DEC 9, 2013, VOL. 19, NO. 13 • BY JEFFREY H. ANDERSON

The young won’t show up for Obamacare.

Former president Bill Clinton said recently that Obamacare “only works .  .  . if young people show up.” But it won’t work—because young people won’t show up. Obamacare gives them too many reasons not to do so.

One reason is that Obamacare makes things more expensive for them. The Obamacare arithmetic depends on more young people choosing to buy government-approved insurance than were previously willing to buy cheaper, often better, insurance through the free market.

In its government-run exchanges, Obamacare raises premiums for the young by suspending actuarial science. It forbids insurers from considering some variables that are actuarially relevant to health care, such as sex and health, while also limiting their ability to take age into account in an actuarially based way. Under ordinary principles of insurance, a healthy young person pays a lot less than a person nearing retirement. Under Obamacare, that’s not so. Yet President Obama’s centerpiece legislation depends upon young people’s willingness to pay these artificially inflated premiums. 

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