Wednesday, March 28, 2012

FuneralCare©

Bob's been doing a yeoman's job of reporting on the SCOTUS ObamneyCare© trial, for which we're very grateful. Something came up yesterday, though, that I don't think got a lot of play in the MSM, and which seems to me to surpass even the "broccoli" argument. Justice Alito asked SG Verrilli:

"Do you think there is a, a market for burial services?"

The Solicitor General affirmed that he believed there was such a market, which allowed Justice Alito to ponder:

"[S]uppose that you and I walked around downtown Washington at lunch hour and we found a couple of healthy young people and we stopped them and we said, "You know what you're doing? You are financing your burial services right now because eventually you're going to die, and somebody is going to have to pay for it, and if you don't have burial insurance and you haven't saved money for it, you're going to shift the cost to somebody else."

At first blush, this would seem a stretch; after all, no one forces us to buy life insurance (which is what burial or mortgage insurance really is). But upon reflection, one is reminded that ObamneyCare© proponents repeatedly argue that we're all going to use the health care system at some point (a rather dubious assumption, to be sure), and that we must have insurance in place to (help) pay for that care.

Well, it may or may not come to pass that a given person will need health care, but there's no escaping the Man with the Scythe. That is, unlike illness, death is inevitable, so why aren't we required to purchase burial insurance, as well? It's the same premise, after all, with the added benefit of being true.

[Hat Tip: Co-blogger Kelley]

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