The key is to create a situation where competition works again.

Phasing out the employer exemption while phasing in a personal exemption would be a good start. Over the past several years, self-employed people have finally been able to deduct the full cost of health insurance, including that purchased for their families. Make this true for everybody. At some point, maybe we can even ease in an actual tax credit, not just a deduction (all of this would need to move slowly).

The idea is to make it pay for people to have their own policies, and make it pay less for employers to offer it. Ideally, you'd start with the first part some years before you'd start penalizing employers.

If you have mandates that force all insurance companies to offer essentially the same plans under controlled prices, you won't get competition. Nor will you get competition with actually forcing people by law to buy private insurance. Unless the companies are free to offer a wide range of coverage, and different plans from their competitors, it won't work.

If there was a law that said all cars had to be exactly the same, where would the competition be between car companies?