NICK ANDERSON / Houston Chronicle Published: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 at 3:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 at 9:51 a.m.
In California, as in many states, you can be arrested for driving without insurance.
The reason is obvious: Costs stemming from a collision — car repairs, hospitalization, lost income — can be enormous. Liability falls to the responsible driver. If liable drivers were always responsible drivers, laws requiring insurance wouldn’t be necessary.
The trouble is, they’re not.
At a sobriety checkpoint in Santa Rosa this past Saturday, police arrested 13 people for driving without a license. Chances are, they didn’t have auto insurance, either.
Perhaps these drivers have the resources to cover the costs of any accidents they may cause. More likely, they don’t, making them a danger to others if they stay on the road.
Unfortunately, some of the same people who zealously defend mandatory auto insurance laws are in court fighting the federal health care reform law because it would require people to obtain health insurance.
The insurance mandate is the foundation for some of the most popular aspects of health care reform, most notably the provision barring insurers from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions. It’s also key to many of the cost-cutting aspects of the new law. Those cost savings, in turn, will help make insurance more affordable.
But on Monday, a federal judge in Richmond, Va. ruled that Congress overstepped its constitutional authority by making health insurance mandatory. U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson wrote that there is no legal precedent for using Commerce Clause powers to compel an individual to purchase a private commodity, such as insurance. Two other federal judges have upheld the insurance mandate in separate cases, and a fourth is poised to rule, perhaps as early as next week. So it’s safe to say this issue is headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.
For anyone who objects to California’s auto insurance law, with its $500 fine and auto impound, there’s an alternative: Don’t drive.
With health care, it’s not so simple.
Not only is no one assured of good health, hospitals are required to provide care for people without means to pay. That care isn’t cost free; the expenses are passed on to taxpayers or added to premiums paid by those who are insured. Sounds like an entitlement.
Conservatives such as Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli routinely argue against costly entitlements. Is the alternative here to allow hospitals to turn people away if they’re uninsured, possibly risking the spread of communicable disease? Or is the intent to keep forcing the insured to foot the cost of treating the uninsured?
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