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For posterity, I preserve here my summary of why the individual mandate (perhaps the most contentious feature of the Affordable Care Act) is not a slap in the face to Liberty or Freedom.  This was the inciting fartbook comment.  Oh, and yes, I’m on that shit again.  Whatever.

Forcing people to purchase anything, is an encroachment on liberty

BLOOPADOOP (<— REDACTED LOL), that stance is non-viable in this context. It’s comparable to answering “Yes” when the question is “Red or white?”.

The individual mandate is not some socialist conspiracy, nor does it have any relation to personal or social freedom. Every modern country implements some version of the individual mandate because at some point every citizen is going to use the health care system. Unless you’re going to argue that hospitals should reject life-saving treatment at the ER because they cannot immediately determine the financial or insurance status of a patient, then those people need to have insurance if health-care providers want to have any hope of receiving compensation for the treatment they provide.

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