MARRIAGE vs. THE INDIVIDUAL HEALTH CARE MANDATE

By David R. Usher
February 14, 2012
NewsWithViews.com

Forty-five years ago Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned us about what would happen if Johnson’s Great Society was established. Today, America is drowning in social expenditures and medical expenses -- most often incurred for lower-income unmarried individuals, their children, and unmarried retirees.

Today, illegitimacy is 72.3 percent for blacks, 52.5 percent for Hispanics and 28.6 percent for whites. Almost none have health insurance. Many elderly lower-income unmarried individuals have no access to health care and could not afford it even if they did.

Most Republicans object vehemently to Obama Care, but believe that the “individual mandate” (a requirement that one must buy health care insurance or face civil or criminal penalty) is viable at the state level.

Trading a federal-level individual mandate for a state-level one is not a victory. It would be the greatest expansion of the welfare state in history, which cost America something in the neighborhood of $1.2 trillion in 2011 (also driving deficit spending at the state level).

Passing the buck is not an answer. There is nowhere to pass it to. We are faced with a decision already determined by unaffordability: Marriage vs. socialized health care. FULL STORY