EV wrote: “Wow. The Romney virus is running wild, even on FR.”
Yes. Unbelievable isn’t it? When even FReepers start talking about the need for government regulated mandatory coverage, you know our society is in trouble.
Have we forgotten Reagan’s wisdom so quickly? Government IS the problem, not the solution. Examples: government not protecting the border but mandating coverage for illegals, government controlling about 50% of the existing market through Medicaid/Medicare, government mandating what private insurance must cover, etc.
The solution is simple and should be obvious for any FReeper: less government, more free market!
I suppose there are freepers who would say that if your kid gets lost in the woods, you should hire a private company to find them, not call on the police and expect volunteers to come out and help find them.
This is the same thing. We expect people to not get lost in the woods, or to have health insurance or pay for health care.
But when they don’t, and they GET lost, or they have a treatable illness, we, even freepers, tend to want to solve the problem, not let the kid die in the woods, or the patient die in their bed, when we CAN do something about it.
If there was such a thing as “rescue insurance”, the only way to get people to buy it would be to force them to, since at this point rescue is a free service donated by government and private citizens. We essentially have universal rescue insurance, paid for by our tax dollars.
If “rescue” is too much of a unique thing for you, just substitute the fire department. We don’t have private companies that will come put your fire out, we pay taxes (required insurance premiums) to get public fire departments (mandatory insurance) since when our house in on fire, nobody is going to let it just burn down (let the treatable patient die) when we can stop it. And that’s even though most people HAVE fire insurance that will pay to rebuild whatever is lost.
The constitution doesn’t specifically say government is here to put out fires, or to help find lost children, or to provide health care. But the first two seem to be acceptable to even the most stringent of conservatives (maybe EV will express his principled opposition to this, I’ve always admired his consistancy).
We all scream about SCHIP, but I haven’t seen anybody here say the wilkerson baby should have been left to die because her family didn’t pay for health insurance, or that the Frost kids should have been left to rot away untreated.
If we aren’t willing to let people suffer the consequences of their inaction, we have already compromised. To then castigate conservatives who are trying to DEAL with that compromise is unproductive.