A Rant That's Been Building

To start this off, let me say that I have health insurance through the company that I work for. I don’t have to worry about being fined or imprisoned for violating the Massachusetts Mandatory Healthcare law. I pay much more for it than I did a few years ago, and the level of coverage has been reduced, but it is still workable for my circumstances. On to the rant:

After years of “mandated” health care insurance, I still don’t understand how the state can tell me that I have to spend my money on health insurance.

The legal basis for auto insurance is the state can revoke my privilege to register and drive my car if I don’t buy auto insurance. This is because driving a car is a privilege, not a right.

To make that work for health insurance there would have to be a corresponding privilege to revoke if I refuse to buy health insurance. What is that privilege?

Under this system, if there is not a privilege to be exercised, healthcare becomes a de facto right. If healthcare is a right, then it is the government’s responsibility to provide it. They may assess taxes to fund this responsibility, but that is not the same as requiring people to spend their own money in the market place.

The government of the Commonwealth needs to decide if healthcare is a privilege or a right. If they decide that it is a privilege, they must stop mandating that people buy insurance. If it is a right, they need to get ready for the opposition; create the bureaucracy to administer healthcare; and assess taxes to pay for it. It may get them voted out of office if their constituency disagrees with it, but that is in the calculus of being an elected representative of the people.

I will be a member of the opposition to this, but if they feel it is the right thing to do, they should stand up for their beliefs.

How I spend my money, or not, is a right that must not be curtailed by the government.