Things to Avoid in Health-Insurance Regulation

Any reform of health-insurance regulation must avoid the following:

1. A death spiral, when people put off buying otherwise unaffordable health insurance until they're sick.
2. Bankrupting the country, because promises that cannot be fulfilled will not be fulfilled.
3. Price controls. This includes giving governments the motive, means, and opportunity to institute price controls (e.g., a single-payer system).
4. A welfare cliff, in which people don't bother looking for a job because you lose more in benefits than the job pays.
5. Charging people twice for their health care, in which people with private insurance are charged for the government insurance they might be using anyway. (This is based on the fact that families with children in private school still have to pay school taxes.)
6. (Lest we forget…) Losing the next election.

I suspect this means we're stuck with the individual mandate, at least until the herd of independent minds starts to stampede in another direction.