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In the olden times when I was a young person, you couldn't get health care unless you were able to demonstrate an ability to pay for it. You better believe I purchased medical insurance even though it was expensive and it meant I couldn't buy other things. Ditto on car insurance.

That was long before this travesty was instituted our government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act

You better believe I purchased medical insurance even though it was expensive and it meant I couldn't buy other things. Ditto on car insurance.

Good for you! Under the new system you wouldn't have to pay a fine and you might even get a gold star. However the sacrifice you made may not be as great as what young people currently will be asked to shoulder. Just since 1980 the cost of health insurance in comparison to available disposable income for middle income people has increase approximately 5 times.

I also always had car insurance, but personally I never had health insurance until I was 28 years old and it was provided by my employer. Before that I worked in a small family business and we barely scraped by. The only times I went to the doctor was to get small chunks of metal pulled from my eye on a couple of occasions and I paid for that out of my own pocket.

Since I have had insurance the only time I have gone to the doctor is for my employer and also physicals for the FAA and my commercial drivers license which I still have to pay for out of my own pocket. I also had to have my appendix removed which cost $10,000... which is less than a single year's premiums according to my pay check.

Despite irresponsible folks such as myself who had no health insurance when they were young... the system has been working since the country was founded without requiring people to buy health insurance. Some would argue that even with the burden of those who have not always paid when they got sick our system was still one of the best in the world. Somehow doctors, nurses and other health care providers still managed to make a good living. How can that be when so many of us didn't buy health insurance? How did our health care system survive without the government setting priorities and telling everyone what to do?

What a mystery! How can we survive without the government telling all of us what we need?