Disarming the auto vs health insurance meme.

[Better Today]

I must first say that as I learn more about the current bill, I'm less against it than I was. That being said...

This whole idea that since auto insurance mandates are legal the health insurance mandate is essentially the same. To date the only argument I've seen to disarm this is that we don't have to own autos, though that is true and totally valid, it fails to recognize another important aspect of difference.

Mandated auto insurance is for LIABILITY insurance only (from a gov't standpoint, if you have a loan on the car, the loan company requires you to have full comprehensive). This means your insurance is to protect others from your carelessness and/or mistakes. You are not required to have insurance for your own self or your own property. BTW, this is true for home insurance as well, if you own your home outright, you don't have to have insurance, the insurance requirement comes from the mortgagor not the gov't.

Now it seems the mandate has no teeth as evidenced in this post...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7293738


So I'm not too concerned about the mandate as it is currently presented.

[ixion]

1. actually, it has teeth, just not as many as a normal IRS pursuit

but they can still garnish your wages. They just can't take your house or car.

They can also make life miserable for you.

Ask yourself this: Why are insurance companies being given the IRS as a collection agency?