I support health insurance reforms and a public option, but I am adamantly against mandatory health insurance. Mandatory health insurance benefits nobody but the insurance companies. It does not benefit the citizens of the United States. My husband and I are currently self-employed and uninsured—but when we need medical attention, we do not go to emergency rooms (well, not unless it’s an actual emergency). We go to community health centers or doctors and we pay our bills. I resent the fact that uninsured Americans are depicted as a drain on taxpayers. When my husband had shoulder and knee surgery, we made arrangements with the surgeon and the hospital to pay for it. That’s not to say we wouldn’t like to have health insurance. If something disastrous happened, we would probably lose our home and savings, but we currently cannot afford it. We need affordable health care options and insurance reforms, without making insurance mandatory. If there are good insurance options, people will get insurance without being forced.
This article appears in Oct 15-22, 2009.