July 28, 2009

Freedom vs. the ‘Individual Mandate’

Suppose the government were to order you to buy a car.

Not just any car, mind you. A car whose specifications are also whipped up by the government. How big. How many doors. Which options. What color.

And I’m not just talking about Uncle Sam regulating what needs to be in an automobile you might be choosing to buy. Lord knows, the feds do enough of that already.

I mean the government of the US of A, land of the free, home of the brave, E Pluribus Unum, forcing you, private citizen, under color of law and penalty of a fine, to spend your own, personal, cold, hard cash, earned by the sweat of your brow, to buy a horseless carriage whether you want one or not.

Absurd, you say. Ridiculous notion. Should, would and could never happen.

OK, Smarty Pants. Tell me then just what the difference is between the government making me buy a car and the so-called “individual mandate” in various and sundry health-care “reform” proposals.

I can hear it now: There you go again, you conservative whack job. Everybody knows there is a big difference between the government making you buy a car versus something as necessary as health insurance.

And look, you right-wing kook, here’s the deal: All these people who don’t buy health insurance are freeloading on the rest of us who do. As Mr. Obama harrumphed at his recent prez presser, “There's always going to be somebody out there who thinks they're indestructible and doesn't want to get health care . . . and then, unfortunately, then they get hit by a bus, end up in the emergency room and the rest of us have to pay for it.”

Not to mention, some will say, that we already have insurance mandates: Most states make you buy auto liability insurance when you register a car.

To which I respond: Oh yeah? So’s your old man! I can make an argument that people without cars are also shifting costs to the rest of us. We all have to travel somewhere, sometime, and we’re subsidizing slackers who don’t want to shell out thousands for car payments and maintenance when we pay for them to ride mass transit or Amtrak or hitch rides with us. Maybe they should all have to buy autos, preferably from GM or Chrysler so we can all get our loan money back.

And don’t buy the blather about Americans who don’t buy health insurance being subsidized. The O-Ring really wants healthy kids to subsidize the old and sick. Quoth the president – once a mandate opponent: "I've been persuaded that there are enough young, uninsured people who are cheap to cover, but are opting out. To make sure that those folks are part of the overall pool is the best way to make sure that all of our premiums go down."

As for the auto mandate, you don’t lay out for car insurance unless you buy a car. Which, no one, not even the Geico Gecko, has actually coerced anyone to do. (Yet.) Courts have recognized that government can place conditions on receiving its benefits (e.g., driving on public roads).

But what’s the corresponding “benefit” for the health-insurance mandate? The fact that we’re alive? Excuse me, but the last time I looked, life was not a benefit but an Inalienable Right . . . right alongside Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, neither of which will be worth the parchment they are printed on if Congress enacts the individual mandate.

Want to opt out? No problem. That’s why we’ve conveniently included that “end-of-life” counseling for oldsters.

It’s bad enough that Uncle Sam wants to shake us down for close to 50 percent of marginal income. If we set the precedent that government can mandate what we do with the rest of our cash, we might as well just tear up the Constitution. And head to the auto dealership.