[2] Individuals with high annual incomes (A$70,000 in the 2008 federal budget) who do not have specified levels of private hospital coverage are subject to an additional 1% Medicare Levy Surcharge.
[4] Private insurers must comply with guaranteed issue and community rating requirements, but may limit coverage of pre-existing ailments for up to one year to discourage adverse selection.
[7] Insurers are not allowed to deny claims or coverage, or to make profits (net revenue is carried over to the next year, and if the carryover is large, the premium goes down).
The architects of the Dutch mandate did not envision any problem with non-compliance, the initial legislation created few effective sanctions if a person does not take out insurance or pay premiums, and the government is currently developing enforcement mechanisms.
[11] Switzerland's system is similar to that of the Netherlands with regulated private insurance companies competing to provide the minimum necessary coverage to meet its mandate.
[13][14][15][16][17] Stuart Butler, an early supporter of the individual mandate at The Heritage Foundation, wrote: If a young man wrecks his Porsche and has not had the foresight to obtain insurance, we may commiserate, but society feels no obligation to repair his car.
[22][23] However, the Clinton plan failed amid concerns that it was overly complex or unrealistic, and in the face of an unprecedented barrage of negative advertising funded by politically conservative groups and the health insurance industry.
[24] At the time, Republican senators proposed a bill that would have required individuals, and not employers, to buy insurance, as an alternative to Clinton's plan.
[25] The need for mandates to carry coverage in a system structured as currently in the U.S. arises when there is an attempt to make health insurance available to all people, regardless of their pre-existing conditions.
In 2007, a Senate bill featuring a federal mandate, authored by Bob Bennett (R-UT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), attracted substantial bipartisan support.
[32][33][34][35] The criticism is that people affected are subject to having their estates need to pay back full medical expenses, not even just some kind of premium equivalent.
[46] Obama attacked Hillary Clinton and John Edwards for their support of the individual mandate during primary debates and in television ads.
(Explaining his opposition, Bennett later said: "I didn't focus on the particulars of the amendment as closely as I should have, and probably would have voted the other way if I had understood that the individual mandate was at its core.
[20][28] Writing in The New Yorker, Ezra Klein stated that "the end result was... a policy that once enjoyed broad support within the Republican Party suddenly faced unified opposition.
[58] Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, which upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by a 5–4 vote.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the individual mandate was rendered in June 2012, in the case of National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius.
[75][76][77] University of Chicago economist Casey B. Mulligan argues that, despite adverse selection, an individual mandate is unnecessary and reducing efficiency as long as insurance is subsidized enough.
[21][79] Opponents such as Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, make a philosophical argument that people should have the right to live without government social interference as a matter of individual liberty.
He has also stated that the costs of increasing coverage are far higher than other reforms, such as reducing the number of errors and accidents in treatment, which would accomplish as much or more benefit to society.
[80][81][82][83] In the United States, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) includes both employer and individual mandates that take effect in 2014.
In France, private health insurance (PHI) is voluntary and used to increase the reimbursement rate from the statutory sickness system.
Most workers are insured through compulsory membership of "sickness funds" that are non-profit entities established originally by trades unions and now given statutory status.
The difference was made up by a rise in income from government taxation, thus widening the mandatory contribution base to the health insurance system.