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Originally Posted by Danzig
again, huge difference between mandating car insurance vs health... you have to buy it to protect 'the other guy', not yourself.
the liability portions are for those who suffer damages due to your causing an accident.
comp and collision are required by the lienholder to protect their financial interest while you owe money on the vehicle. once it's paid for, you can drop those coverages.
and of course you don't pay a penalty unless you get caught driving without it. and as many as 1 in 4 ark drivers chooses to do just that.
you can always decide not to buy a car if you don't want to buy car insurance, whereas obamacare doesn't let you opt out.
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Of course you can opt out. If you choose not to purchase health insurance, you will pay an annual fee, I think the maximum is $600, which will come out of your tax refund, should you have a refund. If you don't have a refund, the gov't is not going to come after you for the money.
That money is going to be used to defray the costs of the people who choose not to purchase health insurance and yet still end up needing health care. Currently, we all pay for them- estimates of over $1000 a year from each of us, via higher health care premiums (remember, your job doesn't GIVE you health insurance- it provides it in lieu of a higher salary. It's about 20 percent of your compensation, give or take. So you're paying for people who don't have health insurance). This is just shifting the burden a little more directly onto the shoulders of those choosing not to get insurance.
If you don't have $600, you're likely poor enough to be covered under the expansion of Medicaid so it won't be an issue. Previously, depending on the state, you had to be more than just poor to qualify; you had to be pregnant or elderly or disabled.
Requiring health insurance IS protecting the "other guy" because fact is, we all pay for all of the Americans who aren't insured who end up in hospitals.
It's not an ideal solution, because "insurance" is a stupid way to deal with health, as, while it's possible to go through life never having a car accident or a house catching on fire, it's not possible to go through life never getting sick. National health care would be better, and cheaper. Unfortunately, that's not an option here. So, this is an attempt to improve our current situation, which is not sustainable, though very profitable for insurance corporations.