You didn't. But a lot of other people in this thread were saying that.
Then they are uninformed. I'm sorry I missed what you meant there and insinuated you didn't know what socialism was.
"Effectively compulsory" is what I meant. See below. By the way, are you saying that changes with the ACA have actually allowed you to get rid of your insurance and buy it again only when you need it? Because that is what it sounds like.
Yes, the changes in the ACA allowed me to drop my coverage. With the ban on preexisting conditions, I can buy new insurance at any time without penalty. The "fine" that occurs when people do not buy health insurance as per the individual mandate cannot be collected. They law states that it can only be collected by reducing the amount dispensed back in a tax return. I file my taxes so that I am always paying extra at the end of the year, so the "fine" means nothing to me. Another tax cut for the rich! Thanks Obama!
In general, I agree. There are plenty of people that choose not to by home insurance, for example. But health insurance is a whole different ballgame because healthcare is a regulalry recurring expense. Again, a combination of special interest groups, including insurance companies, have pushed up healthcare prices in a monopolistic fashion. As a result, lot of people can only afford their regular old primary care appointments with the help of a health insurance copay from their employer-provided insurance. And because the market is so monopolized, there are not very many good choices. Many people are stuck with the insurance their employer chooses for them, or the least-worst option on the market. Some people (those with prior conditions, for example) have literally zero options. They don't even have the choice to buy health insurance if they want to. How is that a free market situation? How is it fair? Obamacare promises to put an end to some of these monopolistic practices.
I don't understand how you could be against repealing these laws if you know at least this much. It's precisely government intervention and protections for corporations that caused the inflation of health care costs. For example, with wage control in WWII businesses hired new employees by offering health insurance as a benefit (read: extra pay). There are countless other examples of similar scenarios leading to the mess we have today.
Then you should feel no compunction in finding the nearest rape victim and explaining to them how you feel like you are being raped by the government. Or finding the nearest African American and telling him how taxes are like slavery. Odds are that both of them will be taxpayers. See if either of them agree with you. My guess is that you have never dealt with slavery, rape, or murder, so you have no idea what you are taking about.
The scenarios share a common theme: All are aggressions against peaceful people. No I would not go up to a rape victim and make them relive something like that to make a political point. That's just indecent. I can, however, state that murder, rape, and theft share that common theme. I can tell you're more political than philosophical due to you being bent on political correctness.
Name one non hunter-gatherer, non-nomadic society that didn't have either taxes or some form of communal (i.e. socialist) living. There are none.
Of course not! There also aren't any societies without murder, theft, or rape! Are you arguing that we need people to be raped? Would to walk up to a rape victim and say that we needed them to be raped to be able to live in a modern society? See how you're just being silly? You should try to make logical points instead of emotional ones.
No person? Really? Let's see:
But corporate executives at insurance companies have sure run the market in their favor. It's an 884,000,000,000 dollar a year industry. They must know something about what they are doing.
Everyone runs the market in their own favor. Every time you make a purchase, you're moving the market in your own favor. You want that item x more than $#. The seller of item x wants your $# more than that item. It's a win-win.
You're running into the same backwards answer to your own question. Corporations and insurance companies can only control the market because the government protects them and gives them advantages! Remove their power and you will see equilibration.
Which is why you won't choose it for me. I will choose one. Obamacare does not choose insurance plans for anyone. It seeks to increase the diversity of insurance plans by putting an end to some of the monopolistic practices that have removed competition from the market and made health insurance plans in this country so terrible.
I can't help but laugh! It's like Ford says to you "You can have any color car, so long as it's black," you choose black, and you think that you made a choice! It's just hilarious.
I can no longer choose to have only a catastrophic health insurance plan under the ACA. It is "inadequate" and illegal. If you wanted such a plan, you would NOT be able to choose it. That's taking your choice from you.
But clearly someone does. Would you also say that the private companies that built our railroad network back in the 1800s didn't know to lay their tracks? That commercial airlines don't know where to schedule their flights? That UPS, Fedex, and the rest don't know how to manage their delivery routes? That telecom companies don't know where to put up cell phone towers? This is a ridiculous argument. Clearly there are people who know what they are doing, otherwise we would not have modern society as we know it.
Oh. My. Dear. Lord. You're going to use the railroads? Are you aware that they had a monopoly on the railroad industry
exactly because the government helped them do so? Are you aware that they forced people out of house and home for very little compensation because the government helped them to do so?
You don't believe that commercial airlines could schedule flights without the government? You think they'd just sit on the ground and hope that someone would fix it for them? Do you also believe that if AT&T didn't put up phone satellites that nobody would? Just because you can't imagine how a problem will be solved otherwise does
not give you, or anyone else (government included), the authority to use force to solve it.
People can perform tasks, of course. People can put up telephone poles, of course! They don't need a central planner to do that. I wanted Charter internet and they ran a new line out to my house! Did they need the government to help them with that? Nope!
Why on earth would anyone have to decide that?
Good question! Ask the people living in Spain.
Now you're just being petty.
How do the people at the Department of Defense manage a military that protects 300,000,000 million people? How does the Department of Transportation manage an interstate system that serves 300,000,000 million people? Again, bigger problems have been solved. It would have been easy for people back in the Eisenhower administration to throw their arms up in the air and say "How can we ever build a road network for the whole country? Where would we put the roads? How would we organize the manpower needed to maintain it?" I'm glad they didn't. The interstate highway system has returned $6,000,000,000 for every $1 of initial investment. In the 1950s, 35% of all economic growth was somehow related to the interstate. A well-executed revision to the nation's healthcare system could provide a similar return. A healthy, longlived workforce is a more productive workforce.
You're asking me how a violent monopoly controls 300,000,000 people. I say to you that it is a violent monopoly, it does things poorly, and that a free market could do it better and infinitely more morally. The question was not could it be done. The question was how could anyone know what's best for every individual. It can't be done. There are some people living in the US whose family was killed by the US military. The top down approaches fail the individuals, and they're the ones who really matter.
The interstate highways were not originally built for private use. They were a defense idea and a huge waste of resources therein. We never needed them to protect the nation. Now, they have been used publicly since, but there's no evidence to suggest that someone wouldn't have built such a system without the government. Believe it or not, roads existed before the income tax.
I agree that a well-executed revision to the health care system will provide a huge benefit. Unfortunately, we are not experiencing that. We are experiencing exactly the opposite.
There is a difference between humility and inaction out of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The latter is straight out of 1984, and I see the reluctance to do healthcare reform as an example of the latter.
I'm not
afraid of owning slaves. I'm appalled by the thought of slavery.
I'm not
afraid of not stealing money from people and using it to buy health insurance for them. I'm appalled by the idea of using violence against peaceful people.
