Monday, July 30, 2012

Folks, No-Fault, and '57 Fords

It doesn't get much more complicated than ObamaCare. So, let's make it simple:  Under ObamaCare, which is universal health care, everyone must have health insurance.

Put that way, it doesn't sound so bad. Certainly, everyone, eventually will need health insurance. Still, people are uneasy. They hear the word "mandate," as in "mandatory," and they get worried that the government will try to make them do something that they may not feel like doing just now.

Try this:  Think "mandate" and then think of a point of reference. For me, that "point of reference" is 1973. I was twenty, and in my third year at Western Michigan University. Prior to returning to school after summer break, I bought a '57 Ford for 50 bucks. It was a two-tone blue, stick-in-the-column tank - no fiber glass there, just pure cast-iron muscle. I did not need car insurance. I just told folks to "Get outa  the way."

But government told me I had to have insurance. (On a fifty-dollar car?) Yes.

That's a mandate. Still, I could not afford real insurance. So, I purchased a "no-fault" insurance package - what we jokingly called "yo-fault" - which was no insurance at all, but a penalty for not buying real insurance. Sound familiar?

Now, the Republicans, on the heels of the Roberts ruling, is calling ObamaCare a "tax." Of course, it is a tax. All government programs tax the public. You want a road built? Tax the public first. National Defense plan, food stamp program, education budget - tax, tax, tax.

So what if ObamaCare is a tax. There are 30 million Americans - most of whom are poor - who are without health insurance, including millions of small children. ObamaCare insures that they, too, will receive those services that can give them a better life.

Sounds like a vintage two-tone '57 Ford to me. Please, get out of the way.

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