Mandatory health insurance?

[pauamma]

so it looks (from what I saw) that the final (signed into law) health bill makes health insurance mandatory. I'm curious: setting aside the "why would anyone in their right mind *not* want health insurance" justification or justification attempt, what are the reasons invoked to make it mandatory? If someone wanted to opt out for some reason (if only because it's mandatory, benefits notwithstanding), what would be their options, and would you consider that wish reasonable?

ETA: should probably get "health insurance" and or "it's for your own good" topic tags, but I can't create new tags.

Comments

[zorkian]

They're vastly different!

The argument it seems you are trying to make would require that the person who doesn't want to pay road taxes not only never use them him or herself, but also never buy anything that ever traversed them, never do anything that required the road to exist.

Same goes for schools. If you never went to a school, ever, then I'd say sure - you can not pay the tax. But schools are something that are generally required (and I think education as a requirement is acceptable) so you don't much have a choice there. You have to go to school.

But if someone were to never use the roads or anything that ever needed them, or they never went to school, then sure. I'd say let them skip those taxes.

Realistically speaking, though, those aren't possible situations.

However, it's entirely possible for someone to never go to the doctor. I've been twice in the past decade -- once for a physical required before I went to college, and once for my motorcycle accident. Both of those situations I could have paid for out of pocket. (I realize how easily that could have not been the case, trust me. But that's a choice I think people should be able to make.)

So, to me, the situations are very different.

[cheyinka]

The thing with schools, I think, is the best analogy for why it might be worth funding other people's health care:

even people who homeschool their kids, or send them to private school, as well as people who don't have kids and don't even interact with anybody under the age of 20, fund the public schools - because it's in everyone's best interest that society be populated by people who are at least minimally-literate, minimally-numerate, able to benefit from advanced education should they want a job requiring it...

and similarly it's in everyone's best interest that society be populated by healthy people. Some people never get sick, and other people treat all their own ailments, but some people also teach themselves to read before they ever get to school.

(This is something that just occurred to me when reading this comment, so it may not be the best argument - I'm certainly not sold on this being the best reason or whatever.)