While I am supportive of health care insurance reform, I never was on board with the individual mandate provision that required Americans to buy health insurance from private companies or face stiff fines from the government. The idea that simply being alive makes one fiscally liable to a PRIVATE industry is to me clearly wrong, be it ultimately judged constitutional or not. Well, now Roger Vinson, a federal judge in Florida, has struck down the entire recently enacted "Patient and Affordable Care Act." The next step will be an appeal by the government to the U.S. Supreme Court.
I wouldn't necessarily have had a major problem with the individual mandate to buy health insurance had the originally-designed bill, with a public option, been passed and signed into law. With a public option, such a mandate could be rationalized in much the same way that the old military draft laws were, i.e. as being in the public, national interests. Also, with a public option there would be a more effective mechanism of controlling what could be upward-spiraling prices that could bankrupt people who are only trying to simply comply with the law. The idea that someone is FORCED BY LAW to contribute to a private company's profits, to me, is the epitome of fascism: the marriage of government and private business at the expense of individual liberty.
I have heard the counterargument that motorists are mandated in most states to purchase liability insurance from private companies. But one isn't born a motorist and can choose not to be one if they don't want to. Simply being alive should not make one incur a continual liability to private interests!
The infeasibility of the current bill, at least temporarily struck down in federal court, makes a single-payer system, supported by TAXES (you know, the traditional way we used to fund things), even more attractive to me. But the political climate here in the United States will never allow for such a drastic but necessary change, I'm afraid.
Who knows, perhaps the Supreme Court will overrule Judge Vinson and restore the health care reform act. There are parts of it that I like, most notably the provision prohibiting denial of coverage due to preexisting conditions and the extension to 26 years of age for offspring to be eligible for coverage under their parents' policies. Let's hope that at least these will remain in effect after all of the upcoming legal and legislative wrangling is over.
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Are there any states where drivers aren't required to have car insurance?
ReplyDeleteThat argument may not seem compelling in an area with good public transit, but there are many places where you basically have to own a car in order to function. (I've lugged heavy backpacks and suitcases on hour-long walks enough times to vouch for this. And I was in an area referred to as a city on all occasions.) Maybe the answer is that, since everybody could move to a metropolis and live along a subway line, it's still voluntary. But I'm not sure I buy that. Do you?
New Hampshire and Florida may be the only states without the liability auto insurance requirement, as far as I know. As for PIP, no-fault, and uninsured motorist coverage, mandates vary from state to state. As for your argument, it depends on how you have structured your life as an adult. No, it may not be necessary for every adult to have auto insurance. I positioned myself for several years close to my job and the stores I needed. But that was because I didn't want the expenses with car ownership and maintenance. The insurance requirement (PIP) was minimal, quite unlike the onerous burden that mandated health care coverage would impose on the working poor.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with TCZ: while it's clearly not 100% of those who are alive, so you're right that it's not the same, in many parts of the country going without a car isn't an option. For the majority of people in this country, the auto insurance requirement really is the same as the health insurance requirement.
ReplyDeleteWhat's more, the parts are all interdependent, and we can't toss some and keep others. I agree with you that preventing insurers from refusing "pre-existing conditions" is a good thing. But that effectively means that healthy people don't need to be insured until they get sick. That's why the mandate has to be there: to prevent people from waiting until they get sick to buy insurance.
Of course, requiring people to buy insurance drives the price up, so there has to be a way to keep it affordable. And so on... all intertwined. Pull one thread, and it ravels.
The point I'm making is that the analogy made between mandating auto insurance for drivers and mandating health insurance for the living is full of holes. With driving, those who can't (like my 84-year old father) don't HAVE TO buy insurance. And who can't? The blind, the disabled, those with their licenses suspended or revoked, and yes...there ARE those who can't afford to drive and have to work out other transportation arrangements in their lives. Each of us makes choices about where we work and live, and transportation plays a major part in those choices. It is not valid to compare that with the simple fact of living, which obviously is the underlying basis for our constitutional rights that we hold so dear. There is no constitutional right to drive, as far as I know.
ReplyDeleteI sympathize with Senator Baucus, who vehemently stated during the health care reform bill debate that mandating everyone to purchase health insurance was necessary for the program to be adequately funded. I want a good national policy that allows any of us to obtain needed health care without bankrupting us or having that care denied through lack of funds. But this current mandate, without a public option, seems to me to be a cruel regressive tax on the working poor.