The Unprecedented is the New Precedent

Last December, an Illinois representative introduced a bill to require unvaccinated individuals to pay the full cost of their health care if they contract COVID. The bill, which was quickly withdrawn when the sponsor was threatened with violence, would have applied even to those with insurance.

One critic of the bill said,

Let’s say that somebody gets influenza and hasn’t had their flu shot, are you not going to pay for them either? It’s discriminatory. It’s draconian. And it’s unprecedented.

Sadly, the pandemic has seen the unprecedented repeatedly enacted into law. From mask mandates to lock downs, from vaccine mandates to prohibitions on vaccine passports, the government has seized unprecedented control over our lives. This bill is just a continuation of that control.

If an insured individual gets COVID (or anything else), what is and is not covered is between that person and his insurance company. Government has no legitimate reason to intervene and void the contractual agreement between the insured and his insurance company.

 The sponsor said of the unvaccinated,

It’s a personal choice that you’re making. You know, it is readily available and the information shows that it’s working.

Purchasing insurance or finding a job that offers insurance is also a personal choice, but that apparently doesn’t matter to this paternalistic politician. The vaccine is available and it works, and in his feeble mind, that justifies more government overreach.

The flip side of this issue is the uninsured, vaccinated individual who contracts COVID. Who should pay for his health care? Thanks to a number of different government programs, taxpayers are likely to be footing the bill. But little is said about this.

On one hand, a government official wants to financially penalize insured unvaccinated individuals who get COVID. On the other hand, government is making it possible for uninsured individuals who get COVID to have a free ride.

The unprecedented actions taken by government during the pandemic have not stopped the spread of the virus. We need government to return to the old precedent—a government limited to protecting individual rights.