The law of unintended consequences is a bitch.

Making people buy health insurance is fair in the exact same way that making people buy auto insurance is fair. You use the system, you gotta pay. You gotta pay because the rest of us need protection in case you create a big expense (e.g., cause a crash, go into a coma, etc.).

The only problem with this parallel is, you can always opt not to drive a car.

(But you can't promise to never use the healthcare system and expect the rest of us to think you're actually going to honor your promise when you crash your uninsured car and go into that coma, you poor miserable shiftless fuck).

So then the argument comes down to this: is it ever fair for the government to make you pay for health insurance, even though you're dirt poor and need all available funds to feed your family and buy crystal meth? And the answer to that is, of course, stop asking stupid questions. Fair's got nothing to do with it. You will always have to pay taxes. Some of your taxes will always go to pay for stuff you strongly disagree with. As taxes go (if we define a tax as something the government makes you pay, regardless of whose pocket the money ends up in), mandatory health insurance is one tax I think most of us would willingly pay.

Cranky Libertarians, including some people I really admire (like Boortz and Instapundit Glenn Reynolds) say government has no business forcing us to pay for health care or anything else that isn't on their very short list titled "If I Were In Charge, These Are The Only Things We'd Spend The People's Money On."

1. National Defense
2. Go Fuck Yourself.

But this is where I part company with Libertarians. They just aren't aligned with human nature. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you don't go through life with the fellow scumbag humans you choose, you go through life with the fellow scumbag humans who also happen to occupy the planet as the same time you do.

People being what they largely are (equal parts irresponsible and opportunistic), you wind up with a whole bunch of uninsured folks, which is the situation we have now.

Many of these are people who could choose to buy insurance instead of spending their discretionary income on things like satellite tv and beer, but as I could not live without these items either, I won't get preachy about that.

Anyway, the result of the equation is indisputable. It's what we have now:

Human Nature + Desire For Pleasure Vs. Self-Sacrifice - The Legal Requirement That Everyone Purchase Health Insurance = Whole Bunches of Uninsured Deadbeats.

And that means we responsible types are put in the uncomfortable position of having to decide if we're going to pay for your care when the rest of youse get sick.

Which would not be such a dilemma save for the fact that often it's your children who need the care, and while I'd gladly say no to you and be, in the immortal words of former Grady CEO Pam Stephenson, "conscience-free," I can't accept the idea of denying health care to any child for any reason, no matter how big a screw-up their parents may be.

And you can't, either.

So either we have to find a way to make at least most of the irresponsible opportunists join the giant risk pool that is health care insurance, or we have to keep paying for their illnesses out of our own money, or we have to let sick children die for want of adequate care. There is no fourth way.

That's why making people buy health care insurance is not only fair but appropriate, and we should have started requiring it long before now.

So what happens to people who ignore the new mandate, and then get sick? Comments, anyone?