Quote:If everyone were required to own it the price would go up. That is a basic economic principle.

 

The principle of supply and demand only applies where there is limited supply.  There is no limit on the supply of insurance policies.  That's why, if everyone is required to buy an insurance policy, the only effect would be to increase the profits of insurance companies. 

 

I was in the business of publishing programming and content.  Since we published on the internet, there was no theoretical constraint on supply.  We had no need for extra people, or extra programmers, or extra content creators, so for every additional client we signed up, we just made more money.  We could sign up as many people as we wanted.  There was no upward pressure on price, because the demand never put any strain on supply.  We actually could have cut our prices, because every additional client just spread our fixed costs thinner and thinner. 

 

It's the same thing with insurance policies, especially if the additional policy holders are healthy people who have no need to file claims.  The insurance companies issue the policies, they take the money, and their profits go up.   It actually exerts a downward pressure on the prices of the policies, because the additional policy holders are pure profit, they do not file claims because they are healthy and they are only buying policies because they are forced into it. 

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