The Importance of Mandates in the Selection Problem

The Affordable Care Act, as you likely know, is sometimes called Obamacare. I think if you'd asked me before we had the experience of the Obamacare mandate, I would have said mandates are the classic solution to the selection problem. The main problem with a mandate? Let's go back to the broccoli example. Anyone who has a young child knows that telling them to eat their broccoli doesn't make it so.