The whole column is excellent and worth reading, but I thought this paragraph was pretty insightful:
One of the perverse results of Obamacare I think will be that a certain percentage of people (probably small, but not too insignificant) will do the math and realize that it's cheaper to pay the government fine than to purchase health insurance. Hell, $700 a year is cheap at current rates - I have no doubt that with all the new mandates forcing health insurers to provide additional service, the cost of health care is going to increase in a big way. If the goal is for everyone to be covered, this "tax" (hi, Justice Roberts!) does just the opposite - it creates an incentive NOT to purchase health insurance.To give Chief Justice Roberts’ argument more credit than it deserves, governments use taxes as a form of incentive. There is mortgage tax relief because the state feels home ownership is generally a good thing. Conversely, not buying health insurance is a bad thing, so such anti-social behavior should be liable to a kind of anti-social tax. But, as presently constituted, the Supreme Court’s new “tax” is a steal — $695 is cheaper than most annual health-insurance policies. Especially when, under Obamacare, you’re allowed to wait till you get ill to take out health insurance, and you can’t be turned down. Which is why the cost of insurance is already rising, and will rise higher still down the road. Which means that in a few years’ time paying the penalty will look even more of a bargain, at least until you fall off the roof or acquire an uncooperative polyp. Right now, many Americans are, by any rational measure, over-insured. That will be far less affordable in the future. Some are already downgrading to less lavish policies. Those with barebones policies might likewise find it makes more sense to downgrade to the $695 penalty. What Chief Justice Roberts sees as the Alternative Mandate Tax, millions of Americans will see as a de facto Alternative Minimum Health Plan.
