The Insurance Mandate: Is It Legal?
Published: December 21, 2010
Re “Can Congress Force You to Be Healthy?,” by Jason Mazzone (Op-Ed, Dec. 17), defending a federal judge’s ruling that the health insurance mandate is unconstitutional:
We need to look at the consequences to patients, interstate commerce and the economics of health care if the mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act is overturned. When an individual with limited income chooses to forgo health insurance and comes down with appendicitis, how should the health system respond?
Mr. Mazzone uses the analogy of someone forgoing auto insurance alternatively taking the bus. What is the alternative to an appendectomy?
The care providers must either (1) explain to the patient that he did not choose wisely, provide him with some pain tablets and push him to the parking lot or (2) treat him appropriately. The former is both illegal and unethical; the latter (current practice) is where the commerce issues arise.
The costs of care for illness must be borne by someone. Currently these costs are paid by the state (taxpayers) and, through cost-shifting, the insurance carriers, many of whom are national companies.
The bus analogy, while clever, is inappropriate and trivializes the dire status of our current system and our public’s health.
Tim Carey
Chapel Hill, N.C., Dec. 17, 2010
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