Whose liberty would the ACA infringe?

June 9th, 2012

The 1%!

Most Americans already have health insurance through their job or through a government program. They will barely even notice that the mandate has taken effect. Millions more with preexisting medical conditions will jump at the newfound opportunity to purchase individual insurance policies, which would be unavailable to them without the law.

Among those who still don’t have health insurance, many will avoid the mandate’s penalty because of financial hardship or religious exemptions. Others earn too little to pay income tax, so there would be no way for the government to collect the penalty from them.

All told, that leaves only about one or two percent of the population actually exposed to the mandate’s penalty.

There are many grounds on which the Obama health reform law can be fairly criticized. Imposing an unprecedented burden on our liberty is not one of them.