Originally posted by: shira
Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
Correct. As I pointed out in another thread, back before auto insurance became mandatory in this state (one of the early adopters of such laws) it was argued that there were too many uninsured drivers (about 15% at the time) that were driving up litigation and medical costs as well as forcing insurance rate increases. Since making insurance mandatory the number of uninsured motorists has increased to 17%, the average costs of insurance have increased faster than inflation and faster than wage growth by a large amount, health care costs have increased faster, legal costs have increased faster...in short, making insurance mandatory did nothing good (unless you think making revenue by way of tickets for being uninsured is good) and a TON bad...most of it aimed at making the insurance companies rich beyond all measure.
Insurance is bad in general; mandatory insurance is worth armed revolution to oppose.
Your claim that "making insurance mandatory did nothing" is specious. How do you know that the number of uninsured and average insurance costs would not be MUCH higher if auto insurance were NOT mandatory?
If auto insurance were NOT mandatory, then EVERYONE who had no assets to protect would choose to opt out, since that's a very smart PERSONAL economic choice. Think about it: If I'm a college student with zero assets, and auto insurance is, say, $1500 a year, why should I pay to insure against a theoretical $300,000 liability that I wouldn't be sued for anyway (since lawyers don't go after people with no assets)?
The same applies for medical insurance: If I have no assets, why should I pay (say), $4000 a year to insure myself against (say) a $500,000 medical expense, when I know that should such medical expense arise, I WILL be treated and the government will pay for my expense anyway?
Conservatives are very big on "personal responsibility" until they are FORCED to be responsible to protect the rest of us from their irresponsibility.