The Obamacare mandate would be fair. It would insure most everyone, and more healthy people in the insurance pool means insurance premium costs would eventually decline. Mary Brown apparently bought into the tea party bunk -- that health insurance is an affront to liberty. Meanwhile, paying for Brown's (and others who file bankruptcy with unpaid medical bills) debt harms the rest of us.
Mary Brown, a 56-year-old Florida woman who owned a small auto repair shop but had no health insurance, became the lead plaintiff challenging President Obama's healthcare law because she was passionate about the issue.
Brown "doesn't have insurance. She doesn't want to pay for it. And she doesn't want the government to tell her she has to have it," said Karen Harned, a lawyer for the National Federation of Independent Business. Brown is a plaintiff in the federation's case, which the Supreme Court plans to hear later this month. But court records reveal that Brown and her husband filed for bankruptcy last fall with $4,500 in unpaid medical bills. Those bills could change Brown from a symbol of proud independence into an example of exactly the problem the healthcare law was intended to address. LA Times
