There is Nothing Worse Than an Undetermined Person

Red State's Moe Lane: the King of Incomprehensible Snark. His is an odd little realm, where, say, if he forgets to check the toilet paper before taking a dump, he'll sit there after he's done, all crusty & smelly, on his throne, as it were, yelling out in a 4th-grade "neener neener" voice, "oh yeah! Well, OBAMA wants STALIN to wipe HIS ass! HAHAHA! I'm sitting here in my OWN SHIT! The failure of Liberalism is CLEAR! Chortle laugh giggle." And all the while he's plucking dingleberries the size of dashboard dice. What I'm saying is, Moe Lane is weird.

Anyhow, Kool Moe Dumb:

Sen Roland Burris (D-IL) advocates death penalty for non-insured!

From a CNS interview (H/T: Instapundit):

CNSNews.com: “So, in general, if a person doesn’t want health insurance, do you think they should be required by the government to actually have to get it?”

Senator Burris: “Under state law, we have every one required to have automobile insurance. Now, think about that.

Sure, let’s. You see, ‘under state law’ people are not actually required to have automobile insurance: people are required to have automobile insurance if they want to own a car.  So, either this is not a good analogy - which means that Senator Roland Burris is dumber than soap - or it is a good analogy; which would mean that he thinks that people should be required to have insurance if they want to stay alive.  Heaven forbid that I suggest that any sitting Senator could possibly be about as sharp as a sack of wet mice, so I am forced to assume that he’s ready to have the willfully non-insured executed for their crimes.

This would be astonishingly stupid, if it weren't Moe Lane snarking it, which makes it just garden variety dumb. But what the hey.

If you choose to have a car, which lots and lots of Americans have no choice about, especially in The Heartland (MollyI&I live on top of a mountain, quite literally, & can't escape the need for a car to get to work), you have to buy insurance. Why? Because if there were no mandate to buy auto insurance, we'd all be fucked, that's why. Only very very rich people could ever afford to pay the real costs of even a medium-bad auto accident out of pocket, and those costs always have to be paid. So, the risk must be pooled -- or almost nobody would be able to afford to drive. This is not fucking Stalinism, it's just like that, and that's the way it is.

People who "choose" not to have health insurance now are not by and large Going Galt in the spirit of Rugged Individualism. No -- they just can't afford it. And here is where Moe Lane is especially a dick: RIGHT NOW, if you don't have health insurance, and you're an American citizen, you may very well have trouble staying alive. And good for you, Individualist! But, like, we're all still going to pay for your healthcare -- one way or the other. It is only the most blessed among us who can afford the immense costs of dying in America in a cool, offhand fashion. Most of us, we go broke. Which is what we died for at Bunker Hill, dammit, only on the installment plan.

Indeed, the whole fucking point of instituting a system where everyone is insured is to keep us from all individually going broke and to drive down costs.

If you want to stay alive and yet don't want health insurance you are what is known in The Business as a crazy asshole.

Feh.

Comments

[Sharl]

Greetings Business Plan Writer! You're scratching me right where I itch! And while I could have you arrested for that, it feels so gosh darn good I'm not gonna do that. Besides, Ralph Spoilsport down at Spoilsport Motors says great things about you!

I need someone to help me leverage my synergies, and you sound like the right person to do it. Have your people contact my people, so we can work something out. This will be a win-win for all concerned!

[lawguy]

Actually, I think that most people had auto insurance before it was mandated. I haven't seen rates go down since Ohio required everyone to carry it.

What I do get to see on a regular basis are poor people being punished by the criminal justice system for not being able to afford it, but still having to drive.

Mandatory insurance (of any kind) is a government gift from regular people to the insurance industry. Individual mandates requiring people to buy health insurance won't be any different.

[My name is Required!]

You keep spelling "Ron" as "Lane". Why?

[DrDick]

I think that the health care reform bill should include a teabagger exemption, whereby conservatives opposed to improving the system would not have to buy insurance. On the downside, they would have to pay for all medical care in full in advance or not get any. Darwin would be delighted.

[Substance McGravitas]

Moe loony Moe problems.

[flory]

If you want to stay alive and yet don't want health insurance you are what is known in The Business as a crazy asshole.

Or a 'conservative'.

Same diff?

[Sharl]

Thers, please feel free to zap my comment upthread, since the comment that inspired it is no longer there.

It was late, I was a bit loopy... just couldn't help myself.