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Originally Posted by ryberg
I'm all ears, too, but I don't mind the mandate. We live in a society, so there are rules to follow and responsibilities to be lived up to. This is quite a reasonable one, and I don't really understand why there's much argument against the principle of the health care mandate (legal/constitutional issues being something else), given that we know that we're not going to turn away from the hospital door people without coverage who need treatment, possibly very urgently.
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There are certain rules necessary to maintain a civil society but the mandate obliges everyone to buy a product, or enter into a contract, with a private company whether they wish to or not. That's unprecedented. I know some states have mandatory car insurance laws, but I don't like those, either. Mandatory seat belt laws paved the way for that crap. Give up one freedom and they'll come after another one every time.
Public hospitals can't turn away patients now, so why is the ACA better than the status quo?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ryberg
I know many Americans, apparently like DH, wish that we didn't live in a society where people do in fact depend on each other, and see to those needs in part through government and taxes. But that is the reality and anything else is a pipe dream.
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That dependence comes with a price, like anything else. There are always strings attached, nothing's free. Insurance companies are finance companies and they've artificially inflated healthcare prices. We need to deregulate the insurance companies to stimulate competition among them and also force hospitals & healthcare providers to be more competitive. But, we seemed to be at a stalemate in terms of getting any reform done so I guess that the ACA was just a patched-together compromise. I hope the mandate, at least, is ruled unconstitutional. The rest of it I could probably live with.