noname2200 said:
That's far too broad a reading. It's more like "a person is inevitably going to need healthcare. Healthcare costs money. Monetary activities are prone to federal regulation. If the person does not have the money to pay for his own healthcare, that cost is borne by other parties. Therefore, the government may either require you to get health insurance in order to deal with your own inevitable costs, or issue a monetary penalty on you in order to pay for your own inevitable costs." This isn't like 99.999% of activities a person can do. It's not completely clear-cut, but I can see the distinction. |
Well first off....
A) Does a person inevitably need healthcare? There are lots of people who live in the US who use/ don't need modern healthcare.
B) Does the person inevitably need healthcare NOW. Again, MOST people don't need healthcare until there 40's or 50's. You are forcing people to pay for a service they probably won't need for years to come. Well, most people don't even need it then truth be told.
C) The whole point healthcare can exist is because... on average the costs are MORE then inevitably paid for. More people DON'T need health insurance then do... until they hit Medicare. The fact that insurance companies turn a profit completely defeats the arguement that most people NEED the insurance. Since if that was the case, no profit would be turned.
Consider healthcare companies turn a profit... and yet 25% of all medical costs come from 1% of the population. It's a hard arguement to make that individually people need healthcare insurance to invariably pay for the services they need. In reality it's a very small bunch that requires health insurance.
D) Probably not constitutionally relevent, but I don't think you've thought out the monetary penalty. It's not for people to pay for their own inevitable costs. Afterall, if they can't pay for treatment because they didn't buy health insurance.... they aren't going to be able to pay for the penalty.
This is going to be increasingly be the case as you will no longer be able to charge people more for being high risk... and it's in fact, kinda the whole point of the healthcare bill. Those who are healthy and don't need healthcare insurance will be subsidizing it for those who do. Essentially paying for something they probably WON'T need.
E) Lets extend this further then... well food is one... but there is another thing. Money. We inevitably need money... afterall if you argue we inevitably need healthcare, we inevitably need money to PURCHASE healthcare right? And if we can't, the government provides us with taxbreaks and vouches and programs essentially paying for our healthcare... with their own money.
Since we earn money through work. It seems like (not that i think the government would ever actually do it... well any time soon) your legal preceidence gives the government the right regulate where people work, and force everybody to take jobs.
