There is no current equivalent. While many states impose mandatory auto insurance requirements in order to drive, individuals have the alternative of not driving. With the health care mandate there is no alternative. If you exist, you either obtain "acceptable" health insurance coverage or you are taxed.

The public option merely is necessary to make a mandate work. Many people will not be able to afford private insurance, particularly once the government defines acceptable insurance to include so many benefits as to raise the cost prohibitively.

The public option, which inevitably will be subsidized, provides the catch basin for the mandate runoff. As more and more employers opt for taxation instead of coverage, and as the ranks of those facing individual taxation rise, more and more people will be forced into the public option.

But the public option is the symptom of the mandate disease, not the other way around.

It is not surprising, therefore, that attention had
symptom of the mandate disease, not the other way around. It is not surprising, therefore, that attention had turned once again to getting rid of the mandate.

The debate over the mandate is a debate we need to have. It goes to the very heart of who and what we are as a nation. If we can mandate health insurance under threat of taxation, then there is no limit to what else can be mandated under the threat of taxes.

It is time to get rid of the disease, not just treat the symptom. It is time to get rid of the mandate from the Democratic health care restructuring plans.

If we really want to "get rid of the disease" it would require we fire every person in Washington.

Will never happen and those that believe they are getting something for nothing will never allow personal accountability back into our borders.

We, the people, have created this beast by asking it to "protect" us and "punish the guilty."