So long as Federal Law requires emergency rooms to accept you if you don't have insurance, than it very much is the business of the government. By not having insurance, you are free riding on the rest of us. Since when do libertarians support free riders?
If there is a problem with being a "liability to others," then the system needs to change in the direction of more freedom rather than more regulation.
Okay, but as governor, Romney had no ability to change that system. It's a FEDERAL law that requires emergency rooms to treat everyone. The Federal law set up a situation in which free riders were taking advantage of everyone else, and he addressed it in an eminently reasonable way.
Mandatory health insurance is a BAD IDEA and it is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
On what grounds? I see nothing in the constitution prohibiting states form mandating health insurance, so it would seem that states would have the power to mandate it under 10th Amendment.
I cannot believe that people who call themselves conservatives can support mandatory health insurance. The free riders are the types who make it so that it costs many hundreds of dollars a MONTH for health insurance -- more in one month than I spend on medical stuff over the course of YEARS! I take care of myself. I eat right. I exercise. I don't consider any little ache or pain or irregularity cause to go to the doctor. I IGNORE media hoopla about the latest malady (restless leg syndrome, Adult ADD, depresstion, etc.). I use the same common sense regarding my health as my great grandmother, who lived to be in her late 90s and was sharp as a tack.
My parents raised FIVE KIDS with no health insurance -- believe me, they never burdened the taxpayer because they used common sense. That alone proves to me that politics and pop culture is what has made health insurance so "vital," because human health hasn't changed that much since I was a kid! When I DO go the doctor, I pay CASH and usually get a pretty tidy discount because they don't have to go through the BS paperwork of insurance.
You are telling EVERYONE that the government is superior to common sense.
You talk about freeloaders! An emergency is just that -- an emergency. That's not what's causing this "crisis," and "the rest of us" are not paying for that nearly as much as we are morons who unquestioningly believe every latest health scare and go to the doctor more than they need.
Auto insurance is a choice -- you choose to have and drive a car, you must have car insurance. I don't like it, but I don't think it's unconstitutional. Where in the constitution does it say that just because you're alive, the government has a right to require you to own health insurance? Again, I can't believe you people call yourselves conservatives.