On Government Mandate of Insurance

In a recent debate between two people that i observed (names withheld) on health care, one started talking a little on the individual mandate, that every American have to buy health insurance. He said it was unconstitutional.

However, one pointed out that the government already forces you to buy auto insurance.

"you can argue that nowhere in the constitution ... Read moredoes is say that the government can mandate that you buy health-insurance. It's not really an effective or legitimate argument either way. But I would point out that we do mandate auto-insurance in many States."

Now this argument has been throw around by a lot of people, including politicians. However the argument was put out with this response:

"The comparison to auto insurance doesn't fly either, because my auto insurance does not cover my regular tune ups and oil changes. It does not cover my car washes. It does not cover having a new sunroof put in my car. My car insurance insures me against the possibility of catastrophic loss. It is actually insurance - we pool risk in the case of ... Read morecatasrophic loss. We each pay the price we want for the car we want to drive - I don't have to underwrite anyone's BMW purchase. We can select different price points and different baskets of goods and services in those vehicles. We recognize our routine maintenance costs as predictable and budget able items for which we do not need to pool risk."