Rubio’s Health Plan Has an Individual Mandate

The Cato Institute reports:

When Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump momentarily embraced Obamacare’s individual mandate before disavowing it, Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives caught the vapors. But where is conservative outrage over Marco Rubio’s health plan, which actually contains an individual mandate?

Rubio, unlike his opponents, has offered details on how he would replace Obamacare. (Trump merely promises “something terrific.”) He builds his replacement plan around an individual mandate, and an expansion of Obamacare’s spending. Rubio’s plan is so similar to Obamacare, so disruptive, and so easily demagogued, you would think he was a Democratic mole.

The centerpiece of Rubio’s proposal would “provid[e] every American with an advanceable, refundable tax credit that can be used to purchase insurance.” What does that mean? If you purchase a government-approved health plan, you could save, for example, $2,000 on your taxes. If you don’t, you pay that $2,000 to the government.

That is exactly how Obamacare’s individual mandate works. No less an authority than John Goodman, the dean of conservative health-care reformers, says tax credits are a “financial mandate” to purchase health insurance.

The Republican establishment sure doesn't mind ObamaCare.