[ctdonath]

Fining people for failing to purchase a product is asinine. There's more precedent for requiring people to buy guns (and fining them if they don't; see Militia Act of 1792), but imagine the outrage if every able-bodied male 17-45 were required to buy an M16 and a case of ammo at their own cost (about $1000).

[aestra]

Healthcare isn't a product by any stretch of the imagination. We are human, we get sick, we get injured. Even the best of us. It is also morally wrong to not treat those who can't pay.

Disclaimer: I am not in support of the ACA, I don't think that it does a good or sane job of solving a problem.

[ctdonath]

Financial services are considered a product. I agree it's rather a stretch to use the term, but that's the norm for all financial services to be referred to in the industry as a "product". You pay an amount, you get a service; don't pay, don't get it.

Don't confuse "health insurance" (which ACA enforces purchase of) with "health care" (which, oddly, ACA doesn't).

[aestra]

>Financial services are considered a product

Absolutely, but you won't die if you don't receive financial services. That's what makes healthcare very very different. It isn't simply a "product," it is a lifesaving measure.

>Don't confuse "health insurance" (which ACA enforces purchase of) with "health care" (which, oddly, ACA doesn't).

Of course I am not confusing the two, but if you don't purchase health insurance, you can still get healthcare in some respect. If you cannot pay for it, then someone has to foot the bill.

If you are living, there is a good chance you will, at some time in your life, require healthcare past your ability to pay. Withholding care in the ER based on ability to pay or insurance status is already illegal (not to mention immoral). Requiring one to buy insurance to protect you, and everyone else, in that position isn't in the same realm of most things.

Note: I don't actually support the ACA because it is a very poor bandaid on a gushing wound with a lot of inefficiencies attached.

Note: most (if not all) States require car insurance as a requirement of owning and operating a motor vehicle. This is because operating a motor vehicle is dangerous and can potentially cause damage. There's a chance you'll cause damage beyond your ability to pay. Required insurance is to protect you and others, because a significant number of people will forgo insurance on their own.

However there is an arguably better chance of you getting sick or injured sometime in your life beyond your ability to pay than there is causing damage in a motor vehicle beyond your ability to pay.

[bmelton]

An M-16 costs far more than $1,000, and is not available for purchase by the average citizen. Between the 1934 National Firearms Act, which prohibits the sale of fully automatic weapons to those who do not submit themselves to an extended (months' long) background check and pay an additional $200 tax stamp, and the 1986 National Firearms Act, which make all fully automatic firearms manufactured post-1986 non-transferrable to citizens means that the fair market value of an M16 is something closer to $15,000-$20,000, and that's for a used model that's at least 25 years old.

If those acts were repealed, I agree that the suggested MSRP for an M16 would be ~$1,000-$2,000.

[hga]

I don't believe you're showing you get the point (while making a lot of good tangential points). I seem to remember that government's cost for buying a M4 is something like $600 in quantity, but I forget if that was Colt's price before they lost the contract to FN like they lost the M16 contract (the Army buys the former, the Marines, who are still riflemen, the latter with its much longer barrel necessary to achieve bare minimum performance with normal military ammo).

So presumably in an arming the militia regime, our cost would be lower than the 1-2K you postulate, probably even lower due to massive quantity. With of course subsidies to help the poor ^_^.

(Beginning modified, for bmelton not surprisingly does get the point.)

[bmelton]

Oh, I got the point, but historically, it went the other way around. It was the government's duty to provide firearms to the militia for those that didn't have them themselves.

That said, your sub-point is humorous, but overlooks that if modeled after the ACA, subsidized M16s would be available for near free, while non-subsidized M16s would be ~$4,000-$5,000, if you're in too high a tax bracket.

[viggity]

I bought my AR-15 (DPMS, not a no-name) for $600 from walmart in 2011. You can build your own for ~$400-500 if you're willing to shop around.

[bmelton]

An AR-15 is not an M16. That's actually the main thing I was attempting to clarify, though I seem to have meandered from the point.

[cujo]

I get the feeling that if we were in real fear of the Brits trying to reclaim the land, and an untrained militia had a chance of being useful, this might go over just fine.

[ctdonath]

We do from time to time invoke a draft, forcing men to fight for their lives using tools they do not own and do not understand because they are prohibited from owning & practicing with them in peacetime. Skills with large expensive crew-served equipment is understandably hard to come by and justify a standing army, but small arms are affordable for most (if new models were legal, M16s would cost about $700) and would better prepare prospective draftees. When (not if) the next draft occurs, we face calling up & sending men who not only couldn't own & practice with internationally standard front-line soldier's weapons (M16 or AK47) but would be severely punished if they tried, and will rely totally on the government supplying what they could have brought.

(Yes, some M16s et al are legal, but they're at least 28 years old, cost >20x what new retail price would be without prohibition, supply is extremely limited (hence the price increase), and are smothered in regulative "red tape".)

Ya know, it's kinda like making healthy youth pay into a healthcare system that they likely won't benefit from for a long time to come (if ever; most will put more in than they'll get out): giving people access to products (physical or financial) designed to save their lives in short-notice crises is arguably so important as to be compulsory.

[cgaudreau]

Mandating people to buy health insurance and mandating people to buy weapons are two entirely different things.

[hga]

Yeah, the former has no Constitutional or prior to the 20th Century, US historical basis, the latter has both. And for the Constitutional basis, I'm not referring to the 2nd Amendment, but per Article 1, Section 8:

"The Congress shall have Power...

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

[ctdonath]

Arming the militia (draftable population) in the interest of national defense does contribute positively to general health.