As the Supreme Court this week considers the constitutionality of the Individual Mandate (let’s leave its complex constitutional analysis to the legal scholars, as nearly everyone else in this fierce debate has never even read the Constitution), I thought it valuable to briefly review the philosophy and principles behind the Mandate itself.
What It Is:
Simply stated, the Individual Mandate requires everyone who can afford medical insurance to purchase the private medical insurance of their choice.
What It Is Not:
- It is not government-run insurance.
- It is not Socialized medicine.
- It does not dictate what medical care or tests one must have performed upon them.
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Rights & Responsibilities:
With every right, there is a corresponding responsibility. No freedom is absolute. Every right is always limited by law founded on moral responsibility.
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…………………….“The right to swing your fist ends where the other man’s nose begins”
Such is the right to not purchase health insurance. This right only exists until one’s neighbor is required to pay it for him. Hence, the birth of the Individual Mandate.
Our healthcare system in the United States is unique in that you are a participating member upon your birth (or entry) in this country — irrespective of whether or not you choose to pay for it.
Whether you are born prematurely and require a 3-month stay in a neonatal ICU or whether you suffer a car accident and require an airlift to a trauma center for a 12-week recovery, you will receive state-of-the-art medical care — irrespective of your ability to pay for it.
When you exercise your right to not have medical insurance, the rest of responsible America has to pick up your tab. This is precisely where your right ends.
The Individual Mandate recognizes that by your very existence in this great country — a country that is obligated to care for you — you have actually entered yourself into the healthcare market. As a participating member of this market, then, you are required to be responsible for your share of costs.
Requiring one to purchase health insurance, therefore, no more requires you to enter this market than requiring you to breathe. Your presence here is participation in this system. The Mandate is simply a requirement that all citizens take personal responsibility for their participation in a healthcare system that they are already a member of.
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Personal Responsibility:
Personal responsibility, the most sacred tenet of the Conservative movement, is the core of the Individual Mandate — a mechanism of benefitting all citizens without reliance on government-funded programs.
Proposed in the 1990’s by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation (whose main spokespersons are Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity), the Individual Mandate had always enjoyed the full support of the Republican Establishment.
How then has this same Individual Mandate — a concept created and long-promoted by Conservatives — suddenly become what these same Conservatives now claim to be the “greatest threat to the survival of our Republic since Hitler?“
What actually changed with respect to this Individual Mandate?
Only one small detail: Its support by a black President with a foreign middle name.
So much for sacred tenets in politics.
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the politically challenged 