Voices: No confusion here

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August 29, 2010

By Riley T. Jay Special to The Globe The Joplin Globe Sun Aug 29, 2010, 08:32 AM CDT

SENECA, Mo. — In the Aug. 20 issue of the Globe, a lady wrote to complain about the Missouri State Proposition C. Her complaint was that the wording was so confusing that she could not understand it. I believe that her real problem was that she was opposed to its passage.

She repeated some arguments that were made by the Obama administration trying to justify the passage of a mandatory feature of the legislation that everyone “must” have health insurance, under penalty of federal law. A supposed analogy was drawn between the requirement that automobile owners must have insurance on their cars.

There are several logical problems with the analogy she and others have proposed between auto and health insurance. 1. Not everyone is required to have auto insurance, in fact, only the person owning the automobile is so required. 2. The only insurance stipulated is liability, which covers the other driver for losses incurred at my liability. 3. Some auto owners are exempted from this law, namely, those who can show sufficient assets to stand good for their own liability. 4. Liability insurance is required by the state, not by the federal government. 5. Collision and personal loss insurance is not required unless there is a lien against the auto; and this is a requirement made by the lending institution not the state. It is noteworthy that personal loss insurance would be the type most analogous to health insurance.

I hope this will serve to sweep away some of the confusion that the letter-writer experienced, and about which some others may have had problems. I praise the voters of Missouri for taking this logical and brave stand by passing Proposition C. (Incidentally, I too had taken time to make up my mind before I went into the voting booth.)

Riley T. Jay

Seneca

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Voices: No confusion here

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