Elliot Shaw of the NY Post disagrees with my assessment of this new law in MA requiring people to have health insurance. As does Maggie’s Farm (ht Environmental Republican) and one of my 10 regular readers.
I’m still not buying it though. This is universal health care and nothing else. How can you be against universal health care and for this law??
And honestly I’m fine with minimal universal health care. Then you buy the extra you want.
I mostly don’t think you can compare health insurance to auto insurance or home insurance. If you own your home free and clear you don’t have to buy insurance for it! And buying auto insurance is for the privilege of driving on tax payer funded roads and keeping other people safe. Not to cover your own car (as long as you own it free and clear).
April 6, 2006 — MASSACHUSETTS Gov. Mitt Romney is expected to sign legislation pro pelling the Bay State toward near-universal health insurance. The measure has important lessons for New York state, which is now considering a far less promising approach.
The Bay State’s plan pursues market-based solutions and individual responsibility. It would require residents who can afford insurance to buy it on the market or through an employer. Anyone deemed able to afford coverage who doesn’t buy it would pay stiff added taxes. The model is familiar: Society already often imposes similar requirements on individuals for home and auto insurance.
Most people have insurance. Maggie’s farm is linking to something showing that in MA it’s young men with decent jobs who aren’t buying insurance because they are willing to take the risks.
In reality that should mean that when these same young men go off and break a leg or get cancer or something, then you bill them. They get the fines (in the form of interest payments) for not actually paying their bill. When I had nothing and went to the hospital I ended up with a bill. I paid on it for years until it was paid off.
That’s how noninsurance works.
Call a spade a spade. MA is implementing Universal Health care. Only it’s in the form that says, all you people currently not buying because you can’t afford it get to go stand in a line and fill out these forms for free coverage.
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