General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: New Report: For 95% Of Americans, Obamacare Will Cost Much Less Than Expected [View all]joshcryer
(62,269 posts)And they refuse to pay into the system (outside of taxes for Medicare). So it is a big deal and it will no doubt have an impact, all the studies on mandates made it clear, that incentives might work but a mandate is necessary to get them to truly act.
I said in theory it lowers the prices because there's no telling how the insurers will react. Logically they would do their best not to allow prices to go up because if that happens they'll be put out of business real quick. New laws would be made to take them out of the picture and single payer will come a lot quicker (this sounds counter intuitive but once the benefits of near universal health care are felt the people won't want to lose it). But it's possible the insurance companies know what their fate is and they'll want to cash out quick, raising costs over 3-4 years until another election cycle and then they get pushed out of the picture.