WASHINGTON - Having health insurance or else paying a fine is about to become another certainty of American life, unless the Supreme Court says no.
People are split over the wisdom of President Obama’s health care overhaul, but they are nearly united against its requirement that everybody have insurance. The mandate is intensely unpopular even though more than 8 in 10 people in the United States are covered by workplace plans or government programs such as Medicare.
When the insurance obligation kicks in, less than two years from now, most people won’t need to worry or buy anything new. Nonetheless, Americans don’t like being told how to spend their money, not even if it would help solve the problem of the nation’s more than 50 million uninsured.
One critic dismissed the idea this way: “If things were that easy, I could mandate everybody to buy a house and that would solve the problem of homelessness.’’ That was Obama as a presidential candidate, who was against health insurance mandates before he was for them.
Once elected, Obama decided a mandate could work as part of a plan that helps keep premiums down and assists those who can’t afford them.
To hear Republicans rail against this attack on personal freedom, you’d never know the idea came from them.
Its model was a Massachusetts law signed in 2006 by Mitt Romney, now the front-runner of the Republican presidential race, when he was governor. Another GOP hopeful, Newt Gingrich, former House speaker, supported a mandate on individuals as an alternative to President Clinton’s health care proposal, which put the burden on employers.
All four GOP presidential candidates now promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which they call “Obamacare.’’ Rick Santorum, former senator of Pennsylvania, calls it “the death knell for freedom.’’
Obama and congressional Democrats pushed the mandate through in 2010, without Republican support, in hopes of creating a fair system that ensures everyone, rich or poor, young or old, can get the health care they need. Other economically advanced countries have done it.
Doing nothing is more expensive than most people realize....
The overhaul is neither the liberal dream of a single government program supported by taxes and covering everyone nor the conservative vision of stripping away federal rules and putting free enterprise in charge....
One argument for the insurance mandate is that the fines are just federal taxes by another name. Another is that it falls under the government’s constitutional power to regulate commerce that crosses state borders.
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