The current health care bill is stalled out in congress, but that doesn't seem to be stopping the arguments over how to rewrite health care.

And today's sticking point seems to be the individual health insurance mandate.

In order to make it impossible for health insurance companies to deny people based on pre-existing conditions, health care must be made both accessable and affordable.

According to the LA Times' piece on health care legislation, the individual health insurance mandate is supposed to make this a possibility.

The theory is based on the program that has been working well in Massachusetts - people are required to purchase health coverage or pay a fine. When everyone is paying for individual health insurance or group coverage of some sort, the premiums paid by the healthy help to offset the costs accrued by the unhealthy.

However some opponents are arguing that it's unconstitutional to make an American citizen purchase health care coverage.

Others are suggesting that such a plan would limit the types of coverage available today, and that the government would need to subsidize a lot of the health insurance plans for the public.

Massachusetts' plan did indeed cost them more than they'd planned, though costs are beginning to be made up in the lowered number of uninsured who are treated in hospitals and the like.

One alternative would be to make insurance available across state lines, hopefully driving down costs. However, this still wouldn't address the problem of people not purchasing coverage until they get sick, when they are likely to cost the most.