One of the Constitutional arguements against Obamacare (beyond the fact that there’s nothing in the Constitution saying it’s the job of the government to provide healthcare… thus makign the whole damned thing unConstitutional) rests on the point that Obamacare tells each and every American citizen that they must, under penalty of law, buy insurance from an insurance company. If the government can tell people that they MUST buy one thing, then there’s no reason why the government can’t tell people they MUST buy some other things, and then some other thing, and then that thing over there…
South Dakota got the message.
Here is the text:
FOR AN ACT ENTITLED, An Act to provide for an individual mandate to adult citizens to provide for the self defense of themselves and others.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA:
Section 1. Not later than January 1, 2012, each citizen residing in the state of South Dakota who has attained the age of twenty-one years shall purchase or otherwise acquire a firearm suitable to their temperament, physical capacity, and personal preference sufficient to provide for their ordinary self-defense.
Section 2. After January 1, 2012, each citizen residing in the state of South Dakota shall comply with the provisions of this Act within six months of attaining the age of twenty-one years.
Section 3. The provisions of this Act do not apply to any person who is disqualified from possessing a firearm pursuant to §§ 22-14-15, 22-14-15.1, or 22-14-15.2.
If you believe it’s within the power of the US FedGuv to order you to buy insurance, explain why it’s *not* within the power of a stateguv or fedguv to order you to buy a gun. After all, guns are protected under the Constitution (healthcare is not even mentioned) as being a requirement of the militia, and the US federal code defines the militia as every male over the age of 18… and since we’re all modernized people, we can assume a lack of sexism and thus the militia includes all the womenfolk as well.
10 Responses to “An “Individual Mandate” Worth Having”
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It is good to recognize useful precedents.
What happens if someone prefers archery or throwing axes? Would they then buy a starting pistol and consider the law fulfilled?
If a starting pistol can be defined as a “firearm” (which i’ve not studied, but I doubt), then I suppose so.
Personally, my recommendation would be that the law be re-written slightly to allow people to opt out of the requirement to own a firearm. These people would have to be put on a publicly-accessible registry, which would be published annually in the local newspaper. People got a right to know, ya know?
As I read the text, a small single shot 22 would qualify. I’d favor a minor rewrite such that a wider range of arms would qualify, including knives and arrows.
If everyone has Healthcare, there are significant benefits in preventative care and public health as relates to disease and epidemics. Healthcare also has serious problems in it’s present form (30,000 personal bankruptcies per year, denying care to the sick due to pre-existing conditions, losing benefits with unemployment, and a 25% administrative cost that’s over double what the rest of the world pays).
Requiring everyone to have healthcare is a potential solution to a problem that requires a solution. Requiring everyone to purchase a firearm does not address any problems whatsoever and would come with increased social costs. Let’s face it, it’s not in the public interest for certain people to have a gun.
Also, arguing your point by using a slippery slope fallacy isn’t very convincing.
> Requiring everyone to have healthcare is a potential solution
Everyone currently requires *food,* and even the poorest American is able to afford to buy it their own damned selves. The problem with healthcare is not that the government doesn’t provide enough of it, the problem is that “healthcare” is a constantly evolving concept that is artificially expensive.
The best overall solution to the “healthcare crisis” would be to ban healthcare insurance (not Constitutional, I’m afraid) and to ban the government from providing it… and to nationalize lawyering to take the profit motive out of malpractise lawsuits. If you are sick or injured, you go to the doctor, who patches you up… and sends you a bill. Can’t afford it? Go to the bank and get a mortgage loan.
Under such a scenario, healthcare would cease to be a maximally expensive. It would become a spectrum, from cheap, basic healthcare to expensive intricate healthcare. Yes, the poor won;t be able to access the very best. But so what? Today’s “very best” is tomorrow’s “pretty good” which is next weeks “basic care.”
As for firearms: more guns, less crime. Anyone arguing against maximal gun ownership among law abviding adults is in effect arguing in favor of not only government tyranny, but also arguing in favor of rape, burglary and theft.
I’d have loved to debate that bill, I would have had so much fun. My argument:
Why should the state seek to enact a mandate that 90% of the South Dakota citizens are
already in compliance with?
No, I don’t have any numbers to back up the percentage claim (I’m just having fun).
Apparently I can’t leave a reply without mentioning healthcare, so here it is: why not just permit those without health insurance to buy into the health plan that US Government employees get?
Mandatory car insurance? Taxes? There are plenty of things that we already have to do, and for good reasons. Why should you and I have to pay for some poor obese slob who has no health insurance and takes on healthcare debt that the government then has to cover?
Making people get health insurance is about as far from socialized healthcare as you can get. They buy from a private, for-profit company, and we no longer have to cover them when they get sick.
> Mandatory car insurance? Taxes?
Nope to both. If you don’t own a car, you don’t have to insure it. If you own a car but never drive it on public streets, you don’t have to insure it. As for taxes… just don’t earn any money, and you won’t be taxed.
But Obamacare requires you to pay up simply for being *alive.* It’s essentially a poll tax, which most people kinda have a problem with.
> Why should you and I have to pay for some poor obese slob who has no health insurance and takes on healthcare debt that the government then has to cover?
Exactly my point. Send him a bill. He can take out a mortgage to cover the big stuff.
“Exactly my point. Send him a bill. He can take out a mortgage to cover the big stuff.”
When he runs out of money, the taxpayer will pay for him through the socialized medical system we already have (and have had since 1965) called Medicaid. No citizens are refused medical care in this country (something I agree with but you may not), and that means if they can’t pay, we will. Better them than me, particularly because I work hard and pay my way in the world. A person unable to pay for medical care will never get a mortgage to pay for it, because poor people don’t own homes and don’t have credit. This isn’t “they only own one car and a small lake house on the bad side of the country club” poor, this is South Bronx poor. Either they get it for free from the government on our dime, or they pay up. I would expect conservatives to like this part of the bill, the insurance companies sure do.
> When he runs out of money, the taxpayer will pay for him…
I seriously doubt that there are too many people in this country who would be unable to pay a *proper* bill for basic healthcare. Note: a *proper* bill would be that which the health care actually costs, after we’ve instituted a Losing lawyer pays” reform to the medical malpractice lawsuit system. Setting a broken leg will set a doctor back, what, an hour? And a couple bucks worth of cotton and fiberglass?
I’m perfectly happy with the notion of mulitple layers of healthcare quality. If you’re rich and get shot, say, you can afford healthcare that involves plastic surgery to make you pretty again. If you are poor, you can either afford what you can afford, or you can get the governments Basic Standard level of care, which will involve saving your life and sending you a bill. Now, if, as I said, you’ve been shot, there are two probable causes… you were comitting a crime, or you were a victim of crime. If the former… oh, my, yes, you’re getting a bill. if the latter, the bill is being sent to the criminal. if the criminal is unknown, the government will pay, and keep the bill on record in case the criminal is ever found. if the criminal is dead, the bill is given to whoever his inheiritors are, if any, after all his stuff is sold at auction to pay for it.
If the criminal is broke and imprisoned for life, then he gets to work a fun job like turning big rocks into little rocks.
The big question that society needs to ask and answer: just what level of healthcare do the poor deserve at public expense? If, say, someone dirt poor has cancer, and curing that cancer will cost two million dollars… is it worth it? How about ten million? A hundred thousand? Just what is the value to society of a life that produces little or no value for society?
> A person unable to pay for medical care will never get a mortgage to pay for it, because poor people don’t own homes and don’t have credit.
OK… if society determines that such people are undeserving of a free house, how can it be argued that they are deserving of *decades* worth of free medical care?
> this is South Bronx poor
So perhaps the South Bronx, like Detroit, should be bulldozed.