MastrHiram wrote:BTW, none of the things you bring up above involves the federal government FORCING you to buy a product.
The little secret that opponents of the ACA, like Mr. Rove, don't want sheeple to really understand is that no one is actually forcing anyone to buy anything.
You do not have to do a darned thing. None at all. You will have to pay a small increase in your income taxes if you choose not to, but that's your personal choice. You can choose to rent an apartment for the rest of your life, but if you do, you will not be able to avail yourself of the home mortgage deduction and will be left with no equity when you are old. You can likewise choose to put all your money under a mattress, but you will then not be able to take a tax deduction for annual contributions made to an IRA retirement fund. Your choice. The ultimate in personal liberty.
The fact is that the ACA likewise is the ultimate in conservative ideas, and was in fact, cooked up by the Heritage Foundation itself and touted by Bob Dole. The fact is that the country cannot continue with the current system where the poor (who have no choice) and the well off -- but young and healthy (the "free-riders"/free-loaders) don't get insurance and use emergency rooms as doctor's offices, or only get insurance later in life when they are sick and old, driving up the cost for every responsible person who pays his fair share into the system.
So you either repeal Ronald Regan's law, EMTALA, that allows anyone (even illegal aliens) the right to get care in an ER regardless of the ability to pay, and tell such people or their newborns to die on the sidewalk, or you force everyone, young and healthy included, to now pay their fair shares into the risk pool -- or, perhaps, bar them from ever getting insurance ever in their lives, unless they pay back a penalty for the years they chose not to, but financially could have.
Ideally, it would be far better to just have people pay into a Medicare for all system, rather than just allow less efficient private insurers to get the money, but that was the deal they were forced to take.
So no one is forcing you to buy anything. You just have to pay slightly higher income taxes if you don't -- to at least partially make up for the fact Ronald Regan gave you the right to go to an ER regardless of your ability to even pay for it, foisting that burden on the rest of us.