Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
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.
You are correct, we do not KNOW, but we can reasonably speculate. We know that when it was NOT mandatory, most people still had it (in fact more than now). Yes, there have been other changes which could be factors, but in general we can guess that most people would still have it.
We can also look at the annual percentage of insured drivers and see that immediately after it became mandatory the number of uninsured dropped by almost 50%, and then only rose roughly in proportion to rising insurance costs above personal income. In other words, we can speculate that IF costs were controlled and kept in line with earnings that it would reduce uninsured by a significant amount. However when insurance companies are allowed to increase profits out of proportion to average individual incomes it offsets the gains of mandates (and in fact pushes us worse than we were before). Sine we can see from history that companies (especially insurance companies) WILL attempt to profit as much as possible from such mandates we can assume that mandatory health insurance without regulation will increase insurance costs and cause fewer people to be insured. This will double damn us financially as most citizens will be paying more for insurance but we'll also be eating the costs of even more uninsured.
Not for certain, but very VERY probably.
Also, you cannot expect the average person to act intelligently (financially or otherwise). If they did that we wouldn't be in the mess we are now. Generally speaking people are stupid sheep.
Originally posted by: Xellos2099
Originally posted by: jonks
Originally posted by: Xellos2099
Everyone would paid thousand of dollars for health care since it is mandatory and one can CHOOSE not to buy a cars, thus no auto insurance.
everyone can choose to jump off a building too. you choose to live.
You are twisting my word. You do not need a car to survive. You can't possibily compare between car and jumping off a building.
Originally posted by: shira
Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
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.
You are correct, we do not KNOW, but we can reasonably speculate. We know that when it was NOT mandatory, most people still had it (in fact more than now). Yes, there have been other changes which could be factors, but in general we can guess that most people would still have it.
We can also look at the annual percentage of insured drivers and see that immediately after it became mandatory the number of uninsured dropped by almost 50%, and then only rose roughly in proportion to rising insurance costs above personal income. In other words, we can speculate that IF costs were controlled and kept in line with earnings that it would reduce uninsured by a significant amount. However when insurance companies are allowed to increase profits out of proportion to average individual incomes it offsets the gains of mandates (and in fact pushes us worse than we were before). Sine we can see from history that companies (especially insurance companies) WILL attempt to profit as much as possible from such mandates we can assume that mandatory health insurance without regulation will increase insurance costs and cause fewer people to be insured. This will double damn us financially as most citizens will be paying more for insurance but we'll also be eating the costs of even more uninsured.
Not for certain, but very VERY probably.
Also, you cannot expect the average person to act intelligently (financially or otherwise). If they did that we wouldn't be in the mess we are now. Generally speaking people are stupid sheep.
So, it sounds like you're not arguing against mandatory insurance, you're arguing against mandatory insurance WITHOUT adequate regulation of the insurance industry.
We agree. Mandatory insurance WITH adequate regulation of the insurance industry is EXACTLY what is needed, for both auto insurance AND health insurance.
Originally posted by: Xellos2099
Originally posted by: jonks
Originally posted by: Xellos2099
Everyone would paid thousand of dollars for health care since it is mandatory and one can CHOOSE not to buy a cars, thus no auto insurance.
everyone can choose to jump off a building too. you choose to live.
You are twisting my word. You do not need a car to survive. You can't possibily compare between car and jumping off a building.
Originally posted by: jonks
Originally posted by: Xellos2099
Originally posted by: jonks
Originally posted by: Xellos2099
Everyone would paid thousand of dollars for health care since it is mandatory and one can CHOOSE not to buy a cars, thus no auto insurance.
everyone can choose to jump off a building too. you choose to live.
You are twisting my word. You do not need a car to survive. You can't possibily compare between car and jumping off a building.
I twisted nothing. You said a person can opt out of car insurance by choosing not to have a car. I noted one can opt out of health insurance as well. Or are you in favor of letting millions of people go without coverage at the expense of those who do? Sounds like socialism to me...
Originally posted by: her209
Here's a scenario:
Two drivers. One insured. One uninsured. They get into an accident with each other. Its determined that its 100% the uninsured guys fault. The uninsured guy has no money, etc.
Who pays to get the insured guy's car fixed?
Originally posted by: jonks
Originally posted by: Xellos2099
Originally posted by: jonks
Originally posted by: Xellos2099
Everyone would paid thousand of dollars for health care since it is mandatory and one can CHOOSE not to buy a cars, thus no auto insurance.
everyone can choose to jump off a building too. you choose to live.
You are twisting my word. You do not need a car to survive. You can't possibily compare between car and jumping off a building.
I twisted nothing. You said a person can opt out of car insurance by choosing not to have a car. I noted one can opt out of health insurance as well. Or are you in favor of letting millions of people go without coverage at the expense of those who do? Sounds like socialism to me...
Originally posted by: Xellos2099
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITI...health.care/index.html
I read in the news that Obama is claiming that mandatory insurance is a good thing and he compare to mandatory auto insurance. Mandatory is never a good thing and he is lying about it.
The comparison between government health care and auto insurance is dead wrong. Everyone would paid thousand of dollars for health care since it is mandatory and one can CHOOSE not to buy a cars, thus no auto insurance.