[Chancellor]

Quote by: lsbskins1 And my problem with this attitude is that you want to be "free" to insist on a system that is proven less effective than the system we "nanny staters" advocate.

Whether it's more or less effective is irrelevant. I simply want the federal government to stop violating the Constitution by creating all these damned social programs.

Insurance works best when it spreads the risk. If everyone is a potential client of the healthcare system (and this point is not debatable), then the costs will be less expensive for us all if everyone participates. That is why participation is mandatory. You don't have the "right" to opt out because you literally do not have the ability to opt out. To (sort of) quote a favorite movie - "Stan, you may want to be called Loretta and you may want to have babies, but you don't have the right. You don't have a womb. Where is the fetus going to gestate?"

So, why can't this be done on the local or, at most, the state level? Why can't insurance companies work with employers or with groups of individual citizens to come up with something that spreads the risk?

The simple truth is that when you "opt out", you cost the whole lot of us more money for our healthcare

So what? Health care is a commodity: it's your responsibility to obtain it if you feel you need it..

That is an example of you insisting that your "right" to be able to make my insurance more expensive is more sacred than my "right" to have a healthcare system that makes the most efficent use of resources. Your rights do not trump mine and when there is a dead even conflict between our personal rights, the deciding factor should be the greater good. The nanny staters win that argument, too.

Health care is not a right, it's a commodity. You don't have the right to demand that I pay money from my paycheck to provide you with health care.