To me, the individual mandate feature of the Affordable Care Act is all about shared risk. In the pre-ACA world, paying for the uninsured was ultimately a shared venture in the end anyway (e.g., via taxes); this is just a more upfront way of doing that.
OK… guess I’ll choose death. Are there really people who would, having decided to take the personal risk not to buy health insurance, refuse to go to the emergency room, if deathly ill, on the principle that they couldn’t pay for it themselves? Are there really people who would say, upon finding out they have treatable cancer but no insurance, “OK then I guess it’s my time to go.”? I’m thinking that would be a very small crowd of people. Therefore, foregoing health insurance is not a decision that only affects the individual. It affects us all as a taxpaying, premium-paying collective whole.
Heart of the problem. The core problem is that healthcare costs are just so darn high. Paying for costs related to a major illness outright is beyond the capacity of many people.
What, I have to buy car insurance? I’ve often wondered why we don’t hear people complaining about the fact that almost all states require car owners to purchase liability insurance. This requirement is intended to protect those of us who pay for insurance from those who don’t pay for insurance. Again, we could all end up on the hook for an uninsured driver causing an accident, so it makes sense to require everyone to contribute their fair share. Why aren’t people decrying their lack of freedom when being forced to buy car insurance?
What’s the stick in someone’s craw? So, I’m still trying to figure out why this bugs some people so much. I like freedom as much as the next person and don’t like being told what to do. But why doesn’t it make sense for every one of us to take responsibility for covering our own health care costs as we’re able? We all live with the risk that we’ll suddenly need costly medical care at any point in time.
And it matters because… Finding out why some people are against the ACA personal mandate is important because it seems to be a major road block that’s keeping our legislators from truly working together to come up with some good solutions for making quality and affordable healthcare available to all. (As a side note, I know this isn’t everyone’s goal, but that’s for another post.)
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