You bring up a good point, and it reminded me of an issue which I’ve often thought about in the past.
Regarding medical insurance, people should have to pay for it. Some can’t pay, so, some kind of assistance might be offered.
HOWEVER....
And as you reminded me...
People should have to pay for their bad habits and their risky behaviors.
So, an alcoholic should have to pay for the costs incurred by him and every other alcoholic, by taxing alcoholic drinks at a level that will cause them to drink less, while at the same time helping to pay for the medical bills that he/she will incur in the future. The taxes should be held in a “kitty” for the sole purpose of paying for the bills that alcoholics incur, and for the bills that the cause other people to incur (like from accidents).
Likewise for marijuana use, and for heroin use, and for tobacco smoking, and any other illegal substance. Like I said before, those kind of habits should be taxed at a rate that makes people think twice and more about how expensive those habits have become for them. In any case, taxes collected for each of the bad habits should be held in medical accounts (expense accounts) to take care any bills that are incurred by “users” and other victims.
It would be the same for other risky behaviors, such as mountain climbing or parachuting (which I’m sure people already get insurance for those out-of-the-ordinary activities), etc.
People who are overweight are also paying for their over-eating, but they’re not paying for the health issues which accompany their “unfortunate” weight gains. So, should “regular” folks who don’t have the weight issues have to pay for those who “suffer” from obesity and other weight-related issues?
In any case, there was a time when people “paid a price” for their own bad behaviors and risky behaviors. We should be able to find a way to have people pay for their own “mistakes”, and not put the burden on those who don’t share the same bad habits or behaviors.
Mandatory automobile insurance DOUBLED the price of insurance.
Then it created a black market advantage for illegals.
BLAH BLAH BLAH People know nothing about economics. Go back to your tv set.
Since auto insurance is a boondoggle, we demand health insurance be DOUBLED and create a black market eg emergency room.
Your ignorance on display. The slippery slide to govt destruction.
Did you know not one nation south of the US is not a pile of trash? Ignorance is bringing that here.
And I would say, as would many of our founders, that a law requiring you to buy anything, however wise, is not necessarily constitutional.
Note auto insurance companies can offer policies tailored to fit the needs of individual motorists and can even refuse to cover very high risk drivers and even insure certain costly to repair vehicles. However if car insurance were regulated like Obamacare, consumers would only be able to buy one government approved policy that covered cars, trucks, SUVs, sports cars, motor homes and motorcycles and all drivers regardless of their driving record would have to be insured. This would mean good drivers would be subsiding the cost of insuring high risk drivers through higher premiums and consumers would be forced to buy more expensive coverage for vehicles they do not even own.
Feels similar though when one first hears the notion - and the auto insurers are gouging the hell out of us - along with homeowners insurance: Our two vehicles are worth about a third of what out home is and they cost more to insure each year.
Really big difference between your Auto Insurance and Zero-don’t-Care...State versus Federal.
There is NO Constitutional authority for FedGov to be in the Health Insurance business, just as there is NO authority for them to be in AUTO Insurance business, or any other insurance business, for that matter.
Health Insurance should be a State issue, not Federal.
Forget the fact that this whole debacle started out as a debate about Health CARE, and then devolved into a mudpit fight over Health INSURANCE.
homobamacare is a tax on existence. Please don't insult everyone's intelligence by comparing the two.
It goes much deeper. Many years ago as an orderly in a hospital I watched a 16 year old girl die from renal failure. I never forgot what her doctor told me. He said it was too bad because next year we would have renal dialysis and she would have been saved. Her bad luck.
The down side is that it would cost $25,000 per year per patient. The Judiciary and Congress had a problem. They couldn’t claim health care was a right but they did not want to deal with the problem of only those who could afford renal dialysis to get it. So they punted. They decided gummint would pay without explicitly stating any logical underpinning.
Every time in the last 50 years that the gummint has had a chance to definitively say that health care is a right or not they have sloughed the issue. So in essence, they have, by default, accepted that health care is a right without explicitly saying so. By legally demanding no one be turned away fro the ER. By every decision that deals with health care. Without saying so they have said so.