If you are 25 years old, underemployed, and in good health, are you going to buy health insurance if it costs you several thousand dollars a year? Well, how about if the price of not buying it is a substantial fine? More importantly, how are you going to feel about the political party that forced you to spend the little money that you have on insurance you don’t really feel like you need?
Of course, even 25 year-olds can get sick or have some kind of accident that requires ruinously expensive health care. That is why we want them all to have coverage and to pay for it to the best of their ability. But, you have to do two things. You have to make it affordable, and you have to give them the option to buy non-for-profit insurance. No one wants to pay for insurance company profits and bonuses, but that is especially true of the people who have declined to buy insurance out of choice rather than necessity.
