Mandated Health Insurance VS Mandated Auto Insurance

All too often we hear pundits on the left arguing that if the government can mandate that people buy automobile insurance then the government can mandate that people buy health insurance. Even worse, pundits on the right never seem to respond to this statement beyond rolling their eyes and quickly moving on to something else – making it appear that they are afraid that their political rivals might be correct. So are they?

Not only no but HELL NO!

Here are the main differences:

1)       Automobile insurance is not mandated by the federal government. It is mandated by the states if the states so choose – “States Rights”.

2)      In most states you can be self insured by having a bond whose value is equivalent to the required liability levels of your state.

3)      You can choose to not own a vehicle and use public transportation instead.

4)      You can choose to not operate your motor vehicle on the public roads and highways. If you don’t then you don’t need auto insurance. Many farmers and businesses own and operate vehicles on private land without insurance or registration and don’t even need to have a driver’s license to operate them.

5)      The only way to opt out of the Health Insurance mandate is to commit suicide!

Yes, most of us need our vehicle and we need to drive it on the public highways so we purchase liability insurance.  Every right comes with certain responsibilities and the ability to pay for any injury or damage that we may cause while exercising our right to drive a vehicle on publicly owned roads is one of them. This insurance protects others from our own mistakes. Health insurance is not protecting others from our own mistakes – it is something we purchase to protect ourselves from the high cost of health care.

We can claim the right to health care but our “right” to anything ends where the other person’s rights begin. We do not have the right to force someone else to pay for our health care or to provide their health care services for free. That would infringe too heavily upon their right to make a living and their right to keep their own hard earned money. Just because the federal government can get a bare majority of congressmen to sign off on doing just that by force of law does not make it any less of an infringement on our rights.