Tough shit.
Everyone needs health care. My house is unlikely to blow away, but if it does, I can cover it.
Everyone eventually needs health care, because everyone is mortal, and unless everyone has insurance, there is no way that health care can be made affordable. Very few people can afford all the possible health problems that might afflict them.
Romney forced everyone to buy health insurance in Massachusetts, didn't he?
How can it be moral to force people to buy health insurance in one state, but immoral for the entire country?
This was the original suggestion of the right wing Heritage Institute, by the way.
I have health care insurance, it is a big biter of paycheck but several times I have gotten good use of it.
If healthcare were absolutely universal there are several occasions in the past when I would have quit my job , but for the wife and children I care about I put up with the frustration. The Health care package is a part of the pay and a safety net that I have bounced on pretty hard five times .
If I were less risk averse , or if the insurance were less complete , I could have made diffrent career decisions.
There is some chance that better availibility of healthcare insurance will cause a more entrepenurial nation to emerge.
But this is not what I expect to see from the Affordable Health Care Act. It is not a carefully crafted law that will reduce the cost of health insurance , reduce the cost of health care, or make health care universally availible. Far from it, it is a hastyly assembled contraption that is too caotic to be predictable in its effect.
Already we are seeing increases in health insurance premiums , and why should we expect diffrently?
Already we are sure that the unemployed and self employed will still run bare , there is little there for them.
Already we see the drag on industry that there is every reason to expect to get worse.
Already we see the government paying less to Medicare service providers, whether this will be replaced from other sorces we have yet to see.
So I really expect the experience to be painfull and the pain will unfortunately still be harsh during the period that I was hoping to retire.
So in the end healthcare insurance considerations , combined with my risk averse attitude may very well mean that I must never retire.