There’s a lot of talk about the government forcing people to buy health insurance. The main argument against that, as far as I can tell, is that the government shouldn’t force anybody to buy anything. Socialism, they call it. State governments are lining up (or banding together, whatever analogy works for you) to legally protest that this mandated purchase violates existing law.
Yet, U.S. governments at the federal and state level force people to buy stuff all the time. In Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts, state residents are forced to buy health insurance. If you want to drive a car (or truck or motorcycle), and most Americans do, the vast majority of state governments force you to buy vehicle insurance, and if you don’t you face a monetary penalty. Same thing goes for other activities: If you want to hunt, states force you to buy a hunting license. If you want to own a gun, you have to buy a gun license. If you want to travel outside of the United States, the federal government forces you to get a passport, and passports are not free. Are all of these manifestations of socialism? These laws endured Republican and Democrat administrations.
And now the government is forcing people to buy health insurance. They argue that mandating purchase of health insurance will lower the cost of health care overall. I hope they are right. I am neither an economist nor a health care system expert. I suspect that most Americans are neither economists nor healthc care system experts. We have to rely on experts who say this will work. Unfortunately, that’s how democracy in complicated societies function: representatives rely on experts and the everyday citizen must rely on both. We lived in an America without vehicle insurance, and somehow it was decided vehicle insurance is cheaper with mandated vehicle insurance. Perhaps the same will be said about health care insurance.
Yeah. Anyone who thinks Americans are free to do as they please just needs to look around and see all the things we are required to do…from smoke alarms, to motorcycle helmets, to taxes. I even have a rule in my neighborhood that tell me where I can park my car and what color I can paint my house.
All of a sudden you got these people saying “The government has not right to make you buy insurance”
What they seem to champion is the rights of health care cheats and illegal aliens who walk into the emergency center, get expensive treatment and then walk out without paying.
I wonder if they think shoplifters shouldn’t have to pay either.
Unfortunately, you haven’t given this idea enough thought.
There’s a big difference between a gun license, a driver’s license, a hunting license, and a passport: all of these things are, to a certain extent, discretionary. Millions of Americans don’t drive, don’t hunt, don’t travel abroad, and don’t own guns.
Driving is a privilege. So are hunting, traveling abroad, etc.
Breathing, the very act of being alive, should not be considered a privilege. A federally-mandated health insurance purchase requires you to buy their product, or a product, simply because you are alive. There’s a significant difference there. And if the federal government forces you to buy something like this, then it can force you to buy other things that it deems necessary. It completely goes against the idea that individual states can determine what’s good for their people. What’s right for Massachusetts isn’t necessarily right for Texas or Washington state.
You can move out of Massachusetts. But death is the only way to get out of buying federally-mandated health insurance.
Experts lie. Experts are often wrong. As a free man in America in the 21st century, I refuse to live under the tyranny of experts, especially those whose expertise is judged by individuals who seek to eliminate my personal freedom for the sake of the common good.
What other things do you think the U.S. government will force you to buy?
Diapers.
And baked beans.
Boy, that would be a game-changer if the U.S. forced us to buy diapers AND baked beans, with the obvious suggestion of giving baked beans to the diaper-wearer. NEFARIOUS, is what I’d call it.
A GAME-CHANGER.
It’s already a game changer.
Game-changer.
Hyphenated or not.