I'm kind of confused on all the fuss over Obamacare. It doesn't appear to affect me or most other people living in the US except the government now endorses a wide range of private firms and advertises them on it's healthcare.gov site.
Before, I had a wide range of insurance options, but health insurance for my family would cost >20% of my monthly income, so fuck it.
Today, I have a wide range of insurance options, but health insurance for my family would cost >20% of my monthly income, so fuck it. (I'm not subject to the individual mandate fees because insurance would cost far more than "allowed" in applying the fee)
The only difference now is that people with high incomes and/or no children are now subject to an annual fee (the IRS claims they'll enforce this by withholding income tax redunds, but most people subject to the mandate fees aren't going to be getting a refund, so...) if they don't buy a particular financial service the government mandates. I don't understand the fuss over this... is there some beloved insurance company not being included on the government's health insurance Craigslist, or....?
I mean, yeah, I guess I can understand being offended that the government claims it has a right to do "this," but "this" doesn't appear to be anything significant. I'm working 40h/wk @ ~40% over minimum wage per hour, and shitty health insurance is still completely out of reach because.... well, I don't even know... because it's worth preserving the life of one person with a terminal illness for two years vs. extending the life of 1,000 people by two years each?
Bottom line for me: is it moral for the government to force you to buy something you don't want to buy, or penalize you for not buying it? While the law does a lot of things I might personally agree with (e.g. pre-existing conditions), the base concern remains.
Most countries force you to buy some kind of car insurance to make sure that you can cover the costs if you screw up. If you get a treatable illness and don´t have health insurance it can have seriously adverse consequences for you, your family and/or your community. Not to mention that if enough people are without coverage it will eventually have a seriously negative effect on that nations GDP.
When you ask "is it moral[?]" you can view it from a utilitarian point of view: definitely, everyone is better off. A kantian view: Well, it is by no means tyrannical and every individual is morally obliged to get some kind of coverage out of respect for their own life and the lives of others. An aristotelian view: It is not keeping anyone from being virtuous, to not have a coverage is not brave, it is foolhardy or just plane dumb.
I suspect however that what you need to know is if it is necessary from the viewpoint of the political theory of classical liberalism (americans might know it as libertarianism because you think you invented it). Here is where it gets tricky. Yes and no, die hard purists will claim that anything that comes in the way of the invisible hand makes society less efficient. Why this should apply to the US is beyond me. The US of A, although proudly capitalist, is not a particularly liberal country. Just about every sector is subsidized, shielded with protectionist trade barriers or otherwise blissfully safe from the fiddlings of the invisible hand. Most modern liberals (referred to, by some, as social liberals) will concede that much of early classical thinking is not well suited to a modern society and that a society where the majority is part of the upper middle class the benefits of everyone being covered by some kind of health care plan far outweighs the negative bits.
However, classical liberals (libertarians) are not very well represented in american politics. The main explanation for why "Obamacare" is seen as such a disaster is because GOP wants to paint it that way. Why? 1. Because after Bush Jr. they need to make people think that the democrats and their president is somehow worse. 2. Because Obama represents the kind of social liberalism that roughly 90% of GOP voters would benefit immensely from, and if they realize this then the GOP is doomed. When Billy Ray Junior The Third stands on the barricade screaming his lounges off for the right to remain uninsured he is either too dumb to even operate a door or he is being manipulated(or both).