Jane, You Ignorant Slut: The Health Insurance Mandate Cannot Be Compared to State Auto Insurance Requirements

When President Obama visited our region in August, he compared the controversial healthcare reform requirement that compels every living American to buy health insurance -- the so-called "individual mandate" - to state laws that require citizens to purchase auto insurance.

Now there are a couple of problems with this canard, the biggest being that he insults the intelligence of his supporters by thinking the argument is persuasive.

States (and not the Federal Government, by the way) are not mandating that everyone (including newborns and those in hospices) buy auto insurance. They only require those of us who actually drive to buy auto insurance. In that regard, auto insurance is analogous to bowling shoes which you are only required to wear while bowling.

Now it may be true that everyone will need medical care at some point, just as everyone will need funeral care at some point, but I am not sure that constitutes a legitimate reason to force every American to wear bowling shoes all of the time.