The Individaual Mandate: Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Buying

It seems like the biggest hurdle to the Obama Health Care reform is this idea that a person must buy health insurance, AKA the individual mandate. Everyone, including me, complained that the idea of a person having to buy health insurance, or be penalized, was against freedom, was against what this country was founded on. Well, I would like to issue a mea culpa, an apology, if only on the grounds that this was not the first time this was proposed. For those of you who are wondering what the hell I'm talking about, just wait. Watching MSNBC, the story on The Rachael Maddow Show was about how an individual mandate was once....a conservative, Republican idea. Really? Turns out.....it was.  Remember "HillaryCare?" The idea that businesses just had to provide insurance? Republicans said no, it should be up to the INDIVIDUAL. The Heritage Foundation, the delight of conservatives, said that it was necessary. So what happened? As far as I can tell, a Democrat happened, and he just happens to be black. What I would like to know is, why is this so bad when proposed by a Democrat, and not when proposed by a Republican? And the next question I have is this: if a health insurance mandate is so bad, why is forcing people to buy car insurance OK? Why are we forced to wear seat belts? And yet, people don't call Republicans out for it. As George Carlin would have said, I'm just looking for a little consistency. So whats the Republican Plan? So far as I can tell, nonexistent. I have yet to hear them push another idea out there. Do I still disagree with an individual mandate. Yes. I would rather see it in the hands of businesses. I want there to be a government run program. I would be thrilled if we had a single payer system. But, in the interest of what can be done, this is a start. In a show of pragmatism, I will learn to live with an individual mandate.