As many as six out of seven adults under age 35 would be better off skipping out of Obamacare’s health insurance mandate, according to research from the American Action Forum, a non-partisan think tank.

That number falls if you factor out households that didn’t spend anything on health care and if you assign some peace-of-mind value to buying insurance. Still, in most scenarios, skipping the insurance and paying the federal penalty will be a better bet for most young adults, according to researchers at the think tank. Why? The bottom line:

“Through its insurance market reforms and overly prescriptive benefit design, the ACA makes the decision to purchase health insurance more costly than it previously was for the vast majority of young adults, while at the same time significantly reducing the risks associated with the decision to go without coverage. Whether young adults make the decision to purchase health insurance will depend on many factors, but the perverse economics of the ACA discourages young adults from joining the health insurance system.”

One thing that over time makes signing up a better bet for more young people is the planned rise in federal penalties for not buying insurance. It’s interesting, then, that Washington can’t make insurance cheaper. It can only make it more painful not to obey the government’s orders.

How much more painful? Consider: A state-by-state analysis by the free-enterprise Manhattan Institute estimated that a 27-year-old man in Wisconsin is looking at a 125% increase in premiums under Obamacare. It will take quite a penalty or taxpayer subsidy to overcome that economic logic.