In my column Thursday, I look at how President Obama’s health care law will affect the hipster generation. Starting next year, all Americans will be forced to choose between spending thousands of dollars per year on health insurance they may not want or  paying a penalty. I didn’t speculate on what younger Americans are likely to choose,  but much of the outcome of Obamacare will hinge on this very question.

As I wrote, insurers need to lure younger and healthier Americans into the insurance pool to offset the cost of covering those with pre-existing conditions at a rate the federal government deems acceptable. In 2011, 18.5 million people in the United States between the ages of 19 and 34 were uninsured, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Now, we can’t say for sure why these people were uninsured, what their income level was, or how many of those had pre-existing conditions. But the aim of Obamacare was to attract more young and healthy Americans into the insurance pool through a combination of carrots (subsidized insurance coverage) and sticks (a mandate penalty for failing to purchase insurance). When the law kicks in next year, it’s questionable whether this approach will prove effective.