Comparing Health Insurance to Auto Insurance

I've heard recently the President and members of Congress compare Health Insurance to Auto insurance.  After all, most states require that a driver carry auto insurance, and if we can require insurance for drivers, why can't we require health insurance for individuals.  There's a couple of fallacies in this argument, it seems to me.

First, driving is a privilege not a right.  Your rights to drive can be suspended or revoked.  I guess one could say that life is a privilege and not a right, but once you are here, at least in the US, you are guaranteed Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.  No mention of a right to health care, or the right to drive a car.  So, for those who desire to create a new mandate or moral obligation for health care, comparing that to driving or auto insurance is a specious argument.  Everyone has a right to live, but not everyone has the right to drive.  I think a "moral" case can be made that everyone should have reasonable access to decent health care, but that's not a corollary to auto insurance.

Even more so, the reason people carry insurance and that the states require it is to protect the other guy.  Most auto insurance protects the second party, not the primary holder.  The states are stepping in to ensure that everyone has some level of coverage, but most of any individual's coverage applies to the second and third parties, not the individual themselves.  Additionally, since most cars are purchased with loans, insurance is required by a bank to protect the asset which was used to secure the loan, namely, the car.  Therefore there is a vested interest from an organization providing funds to an individual to purchase a car to ensure that the payments on the loan can be completed even if the vehicle is totaled. No such actively involved third party exists for most adults, unless the government is going to become more like a parent.

As individuals, we receive a corollary to this kind of insurance from our parents, until we reach the age of majority.  Our parents (or more specifically their employers) provide health insurance for children.  Parents have a vested interest in their kids and their healthy upbringing, until the children become adults in their own right (similar to the point you complete payments on your auto loan).  At that point (the completion of the auto loan or the age of majority), things change dramatically.  Kids are responsible for their own insurance, and you can radically change your auto insurance.  No legal actor has a financial investment in you, or your car, at this point.

Finally, there's no concept of community rating or guaranteed issue in auto insurance.  A person who has had a number of accidents or drunk driving offenses will find it difficult to get auto insurance, and will pay a lot for it, much more than a careful driver.  Auto insurance firms rate drivers on a number of factors, as any person who pays for the insurance for a teenaged male driver can attest.  The same corollary holds today for health insurance.  People who are healthier tend to demand fewer services and cost less, so their insurance costs are lower.  There's been no push by Congress to demand that auto insurers bill everyone at the same rate, and, if they tried to do that, all the "good" drivers would demand a discount for their safe driving.  Additionally, auto insurance firms don't have to accept a potential customer.  If they believe the prospective driver is dangerous, they will simply reject them.  According to legislation working through Congress, the health insurers may not have the ability to reject someone who has poor habits or poor eating habits or does not exercise.  There's simply got to be consideration of personal responsibility, both in health care and in driving.

The comparison between auto insurance and health insurance is a notable one in the only area the proponents don't want it to be:  when it comes to those who avoid insurance.  In health care, usually only the young and very healthy actively avoid insurance, since they believe they won't need it.  Unfortunately, these are the folks who would subsidize sick people if the healthy ones acquired insurance.  Conversely, the folks who avoid auto insurance are usually the scofflaws who cannot afford insurance or who cannot obtain insurance due to poor driving habits.  These folks drive up liability insurance costs for everyone, and would do so with insurance or without.  People actively avoid insurance even when it is required, as evidenced by auto insurance.  The same would be true under a personal mandate for health insurance.

Whoever dreamed up the concept of comparing auto insurance (since it is required) with health insurance didn't really think it through.  There are so many differences that trying to compare the two concepts is like comparing vegetables and auto parts.  Non sequitur, totally.

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