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You acknowledge that you lack liberty when a non-governmental actor locks you up, so your assertion that there is no deprivation of liberty when the market doesn't give you choices is just silly.
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The better term is reality. I want a 0% mortgage. I want a lightning-powered unicycle. I'd like insurance that covers me in the event of poor life choices.
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Suppose you live on an island and you can't drive, and
1) the government forbids motor vehicles,
2) the government taxes gasoline at steep rates, and no one offers bus or taxi service, or
3) there are no taxes or regulation of any kind, but no one offers bus or taxi service,
and as a result you can't get around.
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Suppose you live in a country where homes are prohibitively expensive for first time buyers. As a result, most of them can't buy a home. They have to rent.
We should do something about this!
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As I use the word, you lack a certain liberty in all three cases, because you can't get around. In your world, apparently you have variable degrees of liberty -- not in 1), maybe in 2) depending on the prices, and yes in 3) -- even though your actually ability to get around is exactly the same in all three cases. You can believe this if you want, and you can use words in this way if you want -- my point is that it's intellectually incoherent.
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It's not incoherent at all. Were twelve reasonable people charged with assessing your definition of liberty, and deciding whether the govt should compel private parties to provide people with certain products because failure to do so would deprive those people of "liberty," things would not resolve in your favor.
If you asked them, "Should the govt provide a form of health insurance to those who cannot acquire it from private sources because it's humane, and people cannot opt out of seeking health care?", you'd find a lot of agreement.
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If you (sometimes) call yourself a libertarian because you actually care in some fashion about the sort of choices and freedom that individuals have, then you actually should care about things that limit people's choices and freedom, whether they seem to be the result of public or private actors.
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You're not describing a libertarian there. You're describing a liberal.
You're expanding "liberty" to include rights to have certain things.
A libertarian would tell you freedom is the right not to be interfered with by the govt, and does not include the right to have choices provided to you. I think most libertarians would break with my support for medicare expansion, arguing the govt's functions do not include stepping in to fill product absences in the market.
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More semantics, with most of the word being done by "unreasonably." The government doesn't force anyone to offer anyone else insurance. It says, if you're going to underwrite insurance, you have to do it in a certain way.
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The govt is forcing forcing consumers to buy coverage they would otherwise not purchase. This is fine where a person voluntarily enters a market. You want to drive, you have to buy auto insurance, which must provide certain baseline coverage. Here, however, the market is not voluntary. Everyone is compelled to participate.
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Conceptually, you have no problem with that, because you surely accept that insurers can't deceive people about what kind of insurance it's selling. So you're just arguing about whether it's "reasonable" to require that insurance include, e.g., coverage for pre-existing conditions or maternity care.
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I'm arguing that the govt cannot force people to subsidize the coverage of others by compelling them to buy certain products.
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The argument that it's reasonable is that if you don't have these requirements, insurers will be unable to offer such coverage and people will be unable to get it. Sounds "reasonable."
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In which case the govt can use its power to tax, which Roberts' used as the basis for the ACA ruling, to increase Medicare and provide what the market may not.
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If you've got nothing else, try a slippery slope argument. I'm not making an argument that you have the right to have anything you want provided by the government if the market doesn't provide. I'm not relying on the language of rights at all. You keep muddying things that way. I'm saying that government policy which provides more meaningful choices is better, because liberty. What's the absurd result of requiring that health insurance for those older than 30 cover maternity care?
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Your "liberty" justification opens the barn door so wide, the slippery slope argument cannot be avoided. Even you realize this, which is why you're moving away from it and toward a justification under the govt's broader regulatory powers.
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Why not? If it's easy enough for the government to regulate the insurance market so that everyone has those choices, what's the problem with making people better off? We are, after all, talking about the way that the law has been working now for several years. I'm not proposing recognizing some new constitutional right. I'm saying it's good as it is. You're proposing getting rid of regulation in a way that will make people worse off, for no apparent reason.
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You're not merely enhancing choice. There is no net increase of choice in your formula. You are taking away the choice of those under 30 who want to buy catastrophic policies in order to give other people the ability to buy more comprehensive policies.
The person being forced to spend more, for that which he doesn't want, isn't made worse off?
And even worse, you are taking a choice away from someone. The market would provide catastrophic policies to those under 30 if it were allowed to do so. The people you seek to benefit are those you argue would never have been given what they want. Hence, they've lost no choice, because they never would have had one. ...Well, except for Medicare expansion, which would fill in that market hole.
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This is twaddle. I see a lot more innovation and dynamism when you can buy meaningful health insurance without needing to get it from a large employer. The state ought to do what it can to make sure people have meaningful choices.
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Your coughed up the utopian bent of your argument there. The govt should do the bare minimum, acting as a reluctant referee at most. Medicare expansion fits that role.
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Obviously, in a lot of cases things that the state might try to do can be counterproductive, because they reduce the efficiency of the private sector. That's not the case here -- the whole point is that the regulations I'm talking about are necessary to make sure that a private market supplies the sort of insurance at issue.
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What of the person who wishes to buy catastrophic coverage? How does the govt address his "liberty" to buy what he wishes to buy?
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I understand -- you use labels to describe other people, but you don't wish to be bound by them yourselves.
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It's a little hard to call myself a Libertarian and advocate for Medicare expansion.
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Two obvious counterarguments are, (1) these markets will work better if you have private companies competing with each other to provide the services, rather than a government monopoly, and (2) the votes weren't there to enact single-payer, so that option wasn't on the table.
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I don't buy 1, but 2 is valid.
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(1) So? (2) If the privity really bothers you, the government can act as a broker -- problem solved.
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I don't wish to be a Timmy here, but a broker doesn't remove privity.
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Suppose that my county requires every household to obtain trash-removal services. My town taxes me, and provides the service free of additional charge. The next town over doesn't tax me, and approves a handful of private companies to offer services, letting residents pick which one they want use. What you're saying is, you are freer and better off in my town because no one is forcing you to contract with a private party. That's dumb. I understand that you see a grave threat to liberty from the county requirement that you arrange to get rid of your trash, but once you're living in the county and subject to that requirement, it's pretty obvious that you might be better off being able to pick which private company you want to use.
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I have a more apt comparison.
If you're single guy, living in a bungalow, using ACME Discount Trash Removal at $X, a small outfit who can service those with minimal needs, and the County suddenly says, "ACME is not approved. You must use one of our approved trash servicers, who can also service the McMansion owners down the street, at $XX," you've been robbed of a choice in favor of giving a service to someone else.
