Mitt, Me, and the Massachusetts Health Care Mandate

“I owed the government $3,000,000. After I called 1-800-DEADBEAT, I only had to pay, $500,000!”

Has anyone noticed the TV commercials that feature all these people with financial problems? How about this ad: A woman is sitting in a lavish parlor that could pass for a room in the west wing of the White House… “I owed the government $500,000, but after calling 1-800-DEADBEAT, I only had to pay $30,000!”

Is it just me? Watching these testimonials I find myself asking, “Why the heck did you accumulate so much debt to begin with? How do you think the government is going to make up the difference?” Well, the responsible tax payers will pick up the difference by paying the tab, that‘s who.

And then, there was the Real Estate crash. All these people bought houses they couldn’t afford, took out mortgages, and didn’t bother to read the fine print. “It’s the banks fault! They should have realized I was an ignoramus and instead, gave me the mortgage and made me the victim that you see.”  I’m not dissing those who lost jobs or became ill and were not able to keep up their payments. Those individuals shouldn’t be lumped into the group of ignoramuses. So what did the government do? They rushed to their rescue. So, those of us that purchased homes we could afford, that took out mortgages and bothered to read the fine print, that bought the smaller house because we knew we couldn’t afford the larger one, are paying the tab.

Bad judgment and lack of personal responsibility are the main factors in the previous scenarios. Those faults make victims of not only those that were involved, but also those who were not involved – through higher taxes.

Too bad there isn’t a mandate for good judgment.

This brings me to my views on Mitt Romney and the Health Care mandate in Massachusetts. I think the sentiment is the same. It is estimated that nationally somewhere between 10,000,000 to 18,000,000 people refuse to purchase medical insurance simply because they don’t want to. My guess is that most of these are the younger crowd who feel they are healthy and don’t need it. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THEY DO?

If someone can afford health insurance and refuses to purchase a policy and is voluntarily UNinsured, HOW and WHOM do you believe should pay for their  emergency medical treatment? As a Massachusetts TAX PAYER and business owner, I supported the mandate in MA that requires everyone to have health Insurance. I don’t want to be indirectly charged for medical services for individuals who decided not to purchase a policy and play Russian Roulette with their health. Without this mandate, how else do we keep these people from using emergency rooms and STIFFING the tax payer each time they need medical attention?

Some will say that if you’re PRO-mandate, you are somehow less conservative. I don’t buy that argument. I think it’s a CONSERVATIVE VALUE that each and every one of us should be responsible for any actions or inaction that affects others. If you refuse to purchase health insurance and need medical attention and don’t pay for those services, you force me to pay for you – through higher hospital costs, higher taxes, and eventually higher premiums for all.

Now there’s more to the Massachusetts Health Care system than just the mandate. I could go on and on about the facts that Governor Romney got almost everyone in the state insured and gave the state and his constituents what they asked for and needed. How he accomplished all this without raising taxes. I could talk about some of the other reasons I support Mitt Romney for President, but I won’t. All that will be discussed at a later time by myself and others on MRC, RIGHT SPEAK, and ROS.

In closing, I’d like to clarify one thing; I support the MA Health Care mandate. As a Massachusetts’ citizen, I do not support Obamacare and a national mandate to force people to buy health Insurance. Who am I to force my will for Massachusetts on to other states? Like Mitt Romney, I firmly believe in state’s rights and the rights of individual states to determine their own health care needs and to the right to determine what makes sense for them – if and when they determine that it is necessary.

cross posted from MRC