David Leonhardt in today’s New York Times opines that the constitutional debate regarding the mandated insurance provisions of the health reform bill passed last March sends us back to many previous “constitutional” battles including those related to Social Security and Medicare. Fundamentally, countries must set the boundaries for both risk taking and security provision. He argues, in my view quite persuasively, that the security blanket of mandated insurance both encourages constructive entrepreneurship and discourages free-riding. I wish that our public debate might take his arguments seriously.
