One thing that Republicans have been clamoring about recently is for a one-year delay in the individual mandate in response to the Administration’s (unlawful) decision to delay the employer mandate a year. This morning, National Journal and Public Notice hosted an event at the Newseum titled “Fiscal Fallout: What is ‘Responsible’ in Today’s Fiscal Reality” with keynote addresses from Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’s Robert Greenstein as well as a panel discussion on our fiscal situation. Near the end of the panel,  Bill Hoagland, the Senior Vice President at the Bipartisan Policy Center, discussed the possibility of delaying the individual mandate for a year:

You can’t defund Obamacare on a continuing resolution because 90% of Obamacare is entitlements so it doesn’t make any sense, but I do think Bob [CBPP’s Robert Greenstein] passed over one small thing. He mentioned that a delay would increase the number of uninsured by 11 million. Yet he did not mention that the CBO’s cost estimate on that was that it would save $35 billion too. I’m not here to propose a delay, but for the average person listening to this debate outside, [they may say,] ‘Wait a minute. You delayed the employer mandate. Why can’t we delay the individual mandate?” And I worked with some insurance companies also so I know that the argument will be that this will drive up premiums immediately. Quite frankly, premiums have been set here for the exchanges starting in a few weeks and the companies don’t know what the experience is going to be anyway. So I don’t find a delay necessarily to be bad. In fact, I would almost think the Administration would want a delay to get the exchanges ready [while] other provisions of the law remain in effect – no [rejecting people with] pre-existing conditions, [allowing young people to stay on their parents’ insurance] up until age 26. So I think one of the outcomes here will be that you hear more about a delay. And I’m not proposing it. I’m just suggesting you’ll hear more about a delay.

First of all, under no circumstance is the Obama Administration going to delay the individual mandate for a year. They’ve fought off challenge after challenge for the law to get to this point and they believe (as I do) that once it officially begins, it will be here to stay. Based on their desperate, stubborn refusal of House Republicans to fund the government unless the Administration agrees to defund the law, they seem to agree as well.

Second, just delaying the individual mandate would be a disaster. Hoagland says he understands the counter argument to such a delay, but he doesn’t seem to. The problem is that if you delay the individual mandate, but still require insurance companies to cover everyone with pre-existing conditions then the death spiral ensues. Only unhealthy people sign up for the law while healthy people forego insurance. Without the offset of those healthy people paying into the system, these insurers must raise premiums to cover the unhealthy ones. Hoagland notes this, but uses a bit of hand-waving to say that insurance prices are locked in and thus insurers won’t be able to raise premiums. Well if that’s the case, then insurance companies will go bankrupt. The companies came up with insurance premiums assuming that young, healthy individuals would purchase insurance. Their business model falls apart if those individuals aren’t required to sign up, but the firms are not allowed to revises their premiums.

Thus, if Hoagland wants to delay the individual mandate (which he never says he wants to do – he’s just suggesting it’s going to come up), then we must delay the pre-existing condition requirement as well. This would effectively delay the entire law and give Republicans another year to figure out how to repeal and undermine it. They can even try to delay it until the midterm elections where they will hope to win back the Senate and repeal it altogether (of course, the President would veto such a bill).

So, contrary to Hoagland’s suggestion, this isn’t something you’re going to hear more about. It would be an epic disaster policy-wise and the Administration isn’t going to consider it. Obamacare is the law of the land and that’s not changing.