Individual mandate analysis: Could it be a policy nonstarter?

Politico reports on how some experts say the health law's individual mandate as written is not an effective tool to compel people to buy health insurance.

Politico: Individual Mandate May Be Nonstarter
Forget all the shouting you've heard about the new mandate to buy health coverage. Forget the lawsuits, the cries of "Big Government" from Republicans and the Democrats' claims that the new health care law would fall apart without it. What if it just plain doesn't work? That's a real possibility, according to health care economists and analysts across the political spectrum. They're warning that the penalties in the law are actually so low — despite all the protests they're causing — that a lot of people may decide it's cheaper to pay the fines than to buy coverage. If that happens, the "individual mandate" might not bring in enough healthy, uninsured people to cover the costs of sicker people and keep everyone's insurance premiums stable. And those goals are the whole point of including the mandate in the law in the first place (Nather, 3/1).