Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of true-blue Oregon, who once supported the individual mandate, has seen the handwriting on the election ballots and flipped. His new legislation, co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, is one of the more intriguing efforts to reform ObamaCare. The health-care law currently allows states in 2017 to receive a waiver to opt out of the individual mandate if they meet certain benchmarks. Wyden-Brown accelerates that timeline to 2014, when the mandate goes into effect.

While Republicans hope to pass much more aggressive legislation eliminating or dramatically scaling back ObamaCare, I suspect many of them will also support Wyden-Brown as one more way to chip away at the legislation…

If Congress eliminated the mandate, people would not have to buy the government-qualified coverage—unless they wanted government subsidies in the exchanges. That would free up employers and health insurers to offer coverage that employees and consumers want, rather than what the government demands. And if Congress restricted the requirement that insurers accept anyone to those inside exchanges, that would permit the market to function outside the exchange.