YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT: We have mandates because we want preexisting-conditions coverage.

There are two big, important pieces of the Affordable Care Act that will be of concern as Republicans go about replacing it. The first is the so-called individual mandate, which actually isn’t all that much of a mandate but which theoretically requires the great majority of American adults to purchase a federally defined minimum level of health insurance. The second is the rule requiring that insurance companies cover “preexisting conditions,” which mandates that U.S. insurance companies participate in the fantasy that we can insure against events that already have happened.

The preexisting-coverage rule defies economic reality (also space-time reality) and hence is the popular part of the law. The individual mandate is less popular, because people do not like being told what to do by the government, especially if it costs them money.

You can see the obvious problem here.

We have to have an individual mandate because we want a preexisting-coverage mandate.
…
If you want to keep the preexisting-coverage rule — and Republicans say they do — then you are going to end up with Obamacare, or at least a version of it. It might be a slightly better or slightly worse version, but that is what you will have.

If diplomacy is the art of saying “Nice doggie!” until you can find a rock, then conservative politics must become the art of saying “No, voters!” while still beating Democrats.

You can see the obvious problem here, too.