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When my kids used to get out of control, and nothing you could say would get their attention ... you'd finally have to raise your voice above the comfort level. And then they'd stop and say "Why are you yelling at us?"
Well, that's about how I feel about a lot of what's going on here: out of control, childish tantrums. And to get them to stop, you have to ratchet up the noise level sometimes.
But in a way, yes: the arguments that say "I don't want the government to force me to buy health insurance" are selfish, right-wingish, rugged individualist kvetching, really no better than the anti-tax teabaggers, imo. The reason everybody should be required to purchase health insurance is that it helps the common good: without younger, healthier people in the pools, the costs will just get higher for everyone else. The system can't work unless everyone gets it. That has been the progressive stand on mandates for many years now.
Now, for your claim that the insurance you will be required to purchase will be "crappy." For the first time there will be regulators who will be setting the rules for what basic insurance has to contain, including no copay preventive health services, limits on annual and lifetime out-of-pocket charges, etc. That's better than what you have now: completely unregulated insurers. It's a "vast improvement," in Paul Krugman's words.
Lastly, I should point out that the now-defunct (but not dead) Public Option insurance would have the same regulated elements and, according to the CBO, slightly higher price than the private exchange plans. The PO was never meant to be a "better deal" for you: it was meant to force private insurers to compete and to drive the whole down. That's important: and there's a good chance that if this bill passes, the PO will be revisited in the not-too-distant future. If it is defeated ... you can forget about any of this for the next decade or two. People just dying (literally) to get insured will love you for that.
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