Where is GOP concern about another big mandate?
One of the Republicans’ biggest objections to Obamacare is the mandate that almost everyone is required to have health insurance, or they pay a fine when they file their year-end tax returns.
The Republican stance is that people should be able to choose whether they want to buy health insurance or not (freedom of choice). Almost every state in the U.S., if not all states, mandate that all drivers have to be covered by an auto insurance policy; they have no choice.
It’s illegal to drive without auto insurance, whether you’ve ever had an accident or not. The theory is that you spread the risk among all drivers; and in theory, it lowers premiums for all drivers, because there’s a larger pool of payees.
Now Republican congressmen are raising hell about the Obamacare mandate! Why only the Obama mandate? Why are they not the raising hell about the auto insurance mandate? Everybody has a body that at one time or another is going to need medical or hospital care. Seems duplicitous to me.
Jim King, Visalia
This story was originally published March 19, 2017 at 12:25 PM with the headline "Where is GOP concern about another big mandate?."