Community rated plans need either an individual mandate or a substantial subsidy to be viable. Medicare, risk pools, and employer-sponsored insurance are all subsidized. They would not survive for long if the subsidies were eliminated, or even eliminated relative to competing underwritten plans.

Of course, if the community rating requirement becomes law then all insurance will be expensive for the healthy as well as the for the sickly. In that case perhaps unsubsidized Medicare would seem competitive with other available plans, aided by cost-shifting.