@mysteryman,
Yes, nobody but our mortgage company requires insurance on our property and. once we have paid off the mortgage, we no longer are required to carry insurance if we do not wish to do so. Nor (so far) does the government feel obligated to require us to do so while it does not hesitate to require the rest of us to replace uninsured property destroyed in a natural disaster of some kind.
If we don't intend to drive a car, we are not required to purchase auto insurance. If we choose to ride a motorcycle or bicycle instead of a car, we are not required to fasten a seatbelt.
We are not required to insure ourselves against possible loss of food supply or water which are considered more essential for life than is healthcare.
So why are we so willing to hand over to the government the right to dictate whether or not we will have health insurance which is certain to be followed by government telling us that we must use it--fines if we don't get annual checkups?--or how much and what kind of healthcare we may have. If I choose to use natural homeopathic remedies instead of institutionalized healthcare, why should I not have that right?
Then again, what gives the government the right to demand that you provide my health insurance and/or healthcare if I do not do that for myself?
Finally, why aren't more Americans outraged at taxation without representation when Congress is pushing through enormous spending bills that nobody has time to even read, much less analyze and inform us what is in them. It appears that the House will do healthcare exactly that way later this summer.
So much for the President's solemn campaign promise that government will be fully transparent under his administration and will no longer operate that way.
You liberals have a strange way of thinking... a tax is not a fine.