How is being required by law to carry health insurance different than being required to carry auto insurance?
It's claimed that to require one to carry health insurance is unconstitutional, as the law can't regulate inactivity (NOT doing it).
Yet we are required to carry at least liability for vehicles! Explain, please!
Insurance - 9 Answers
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1 :
Well in part it is different because you can choose NOT to drive or own a car if you cannot or do not wish to pay car insurance. You can make the choice to choose alternative transportation. Requiring health insurance on the other hand is a trickier situation. This is insurance for you, more specifically your body. If you choose not to, or cannot afford health insurance (or wish to opt out of whatever government program), what are your 'alternatives"? You cannot give up having a body as you could give up having a car.
2 :
As for driving, it is a choice you make to drive. There is no law that says you must drive. ONLY drivers are required to have insurance. With the health insurance, it is being simply being alive which is the criteria. AND there is a fine of up to $700 for NOT complying with the law. You can CHOOSE not to drive, but the same does not apply to health insurance on your LIFE. It is unconstitutional based on the lack of choice for an alternative. Even with a car, you can elect to "self-insure" or post bond with the state and do NOT have to have any other insurance. The health care gave no option for self-insurance. IF you are alive, you are required by that law to purchase insurance and THAT was what was found unconstitutional. There is no choice in health. There IS choice in driving. It is THAT simple.
3 :
Not every state requires auto insurance. New Hampshire, for example.
4 :
~~It is different in the way that you do not have to drive a car, thus you don't have to by the insurance if you do not want to drive. However, there is no one who can go without health care. Eventually at some time in a person's life they need some sort of professional care. For those who can afford their own treatment then they could argue it isn't right to have to buy health insurance and some will agree with that. However, the majority of people can not afford an unexpected surgery, etc. Then the tax payers are forced to pick up the tab. We either pay it through welfare programs, or because it's a loss then providers may write it off on their taxes. Therefore taxes eventually go up for the rest of us. Medical care costs also continue to climb because of all the losses the medical community take, making us all pay in one way or another. So why some may argue it is unconstitutional to force us to carry it, I am tired of the high taxes I pay and high premiums I pay, for people who choose to not pay for it and then forcing the rest of working Americans to foot their bill.~~
5 :
You are not required to carry auto insurance. There are millions of people in the USA, that do not carry it. As long as you don't own a car, or don't drive on public roadways, you do not need to buy auto insurance. When a law says, to EXIST, you must buy a product, that's essentially a tax on being alive. There's no "out". Huge difference.
6 :
Two things. You're just required to get car insurance IF you get a car. Nobody forces you to get a car. Secondly, the Congress has the power to tax any group. They can't force you to buy insurance, but they are completely able to tax you if you don't and that's what they're doing.
7 :
You are not required to have a vehicle. The law gives you the option to have no vehicle, and no vehicle insurance. The only thing that the law keeps you from doing is having a vehicle without having insurance. In other words, the law is regulating activity (having a vehicle) not inactivity (having nothing). According to the claim about health insurance, saying everyone that everyone must have liability insurance, whether or not they have a vehicle, would be unconstitutional, but no one has ever seriously considered such a a law. Saying that you may not have a vehicle unless you also have insurance does not "regulate inactivity" any more than saying that you cannot drive without also stopping at red lights. You have the option to stay home or walk, so you are not being forced to do anything. You are merely being prohibited from doing one thing unless you also do the other.
8 :
In the abstract it is the same thing, requiring you to purchase insurance by law but the argument against that line of thinking is that not every person has to own a car by law. But everyone needs medical treatment, so the objective is very different between the two ideas. There are plenty of other local and state laws that require you to buy things, so draw an analogy to any law that requires you to spend money. People are upset about being required to have insurance Everyone needs insurance. I dont think employers should have to offer health insurance but under the law if they have more than 50 employees they have to or be fined. I think people should buy their own insurance and if they want to risk not being covered they can end up owing thousands of bucks for surgery. I dont think hospitals should be required to provide treatment to uninsured people.
9 :
for health insurance to carry auto insurance try here http://autoinsurance.greatinsuranceworld.net/aicomponents/bodily_injury_liability_protection.php its a excellent site for auto insurance.
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