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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gg cox who wrote (23554)	3/31/2012 12:17:38 PM
From: Lane3	1 Recommendation Respond to of 42652

The precedent has been set rightly or wrongly depending on your point of view.... I'm not following. Which point of view? We weren't discussing the individual mandate and you offered no segue to the post to which you responded. Should a citizen be allowed to ride on the backs of others for the health care that he might need, at any moment? I don't think so. At least not unless it's a life or death emergency and he is destitute. Do you? Should a citizen be allowed to choose not to pay his income tax without consequence...? Of course not. Why would you ask such a question? and be allowed to ride for free on the backs of others who do? More than half of the US population pays no income tax, therefore all of them are constantly riding on the backs of others re all the benefits of citizenship. We don't do anything about that. Do you think we should? why is the "individual mandate" before the supreme court? I believe that it's because, while Congress has the authority to regulate extant interstate commerce, there's a question of whether it has the authority to force anyone into engaging in a particular commerce when he doesn't want to, whether it can force me to get a cell phone or a Kindle, for example, if I don't need or want one. Paying taxes is not engaging in commerce. That's a different paradigm entirely so it's irrelevant to any discussions of engaging in commerce. Why does a citizen who turns 65,Lane3, and wants to stay on a private health insurance plan, not be allowed to do so? To the best of my knowledge, he is allowed to do so. There is no federal law or regulation that prohibits him from doing so. It's just that there is no market for it so those plans don't exist. I have posted on this subject before. If someone offered such a plan, one could buy it. It's unlikely that there are enough customers for such a plan to make it worthwhile for an insurance company to offer it.

To: gg cox who wrote (23554)	3/31/2012 1:35:05 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Should a citizen be allowed to ride on the backs of others for the health care that he might need, at any moment? Not buying insurance, can possibly result in a situation where you might ride on the backs of others, but it isn't itself not riding on the backs of others. Also having insurance, and then incurring a great cost to the insurance, is in a sense riding on the backs of others anyway. (Its not purely or simply that, you did buy the service of insurance, you created a contract for you to be covered, OTOH the cost minus your premiums is almost as large as the cost would have been without your premiums.) And most important, the only reason why you can force yourself on others backs is the legal requirement for emergency care regardless of your ability to pay. I'm not making a statement against that requirement, but it can't reasonably be used to justify additional government powers. If something is illegitimate for the federal government (like the individual mandate is), then the feds own creation of a problem in that area, doesn't justify more power to deal with that problem.