Now back to the auto insurance analogy. It collapses at the outset because it's not a universal mandate. No one is forced to buy auto insurance. Only those who drive are required to. Many of them don't bother or can't afford insurance and drive anyway.
Unlike health insurance, there's a national market for auto insurance. You can buy a cheap policy from an out-of-state company. You can buy only liability and not collision. If you have a history of safe driving, you get a large discount. This flexibility isn't the case with health insurance. A healthy young man in Kentucky could pay $960 for a policy that would cost $5,880 in New Jersey. The Kentucky company couldn't sell the cheaper policy in New Jersey.
Finally, there's the simple fact that most health insurance isn't insurance at all. It's not a hedge against risk, as auto insurance is. In most instances, it's merely a way for your employer, in lieu of higher salary, to pay your health bills, both minor and major.
There are problems with our health care system, but they won't be solved by creeping nationalization, sold with bogus analogies and federal payoffs to the middle class. Preserving and extending consumer choice should be the order of the day. Smart Republicans should make that their message. And President Bush should waste no time vetoing S-Chip. Do it for the sake of the taxpayers.
--Fred Barnes, for the Editors
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