Is compulsory insurance - auto or otherwise - a good idea? Or is this whole system just a scam designed to make insurance companies and frausters rich at the expense of Joe public?

Here's one reason why compulsory insurance can make sense:

Imagine there are some high risk individuals out there. Suppose insurance companies are unable or not allowed to sufficiently discriminate based on risk. They can only offer a limited range of insurance policies . Suppose the insurance policies they can offer are such that they expect to make a loss on high risk individuals. Suppose that their limited range of insurance policies attracts all high risk people but not a lot of low risk people. The insurance companies will go bust. If everyone has to get insurance, the premiums can be chosen so that the insurance companies make enough profit on the low risk people to cover their losses on the high risk people. under some conditions, the low risk people are still better off than they'd be without insurance (though not as well off as with insurance that reflects their low risk), the high risk people are obviously better off, and the insurance company still makes some money.

forcing people to buy things is always a good idea.

Great OP - solid nuanced grasp of the issues, lays out the detailed arguments from both sides so as to stimulate discussion along intellectual lines. Well done sir.

I watched the entire first season of The Sopranos without realizing this is the same guy playing Silvio.

/derail

And yes to the OP

imo

So you prefer taxes, where you have no say in the matter whatsoever, to individual mandate, where you get a choice?

I mean, I would personally prefer single-payer, but I'm pretty sure everyone who keeps saying "I just don't like that I'm forced to buy something" would be crying about how they don't have a choice if we just raised taxes to pay for it.

This is very simple concept. Imagine that we are making a contract before we are born (somehow, or that parents are deciding for us). The contract is that no matter how healthy we are we will give money to common fund to provide basic healthcare for us.
We both know that probably one of us will benefit from that deal and the other will lose, still it's +life EV decision for both of us because we have no way of knowing which one of us will be born as healthier person.
As there is no way for people to actually agree on this great deal (and similar others) before they are born the idea of social contract was created and implemented by modern societes. If you think about it, it's good for everybody.

Of course some result oriented not very bright individuals (mainly republicans and other right wing extremists, I say extremists because in normal countries the idea is long agree upon by all major parties) can't see that from this perspective and instead push their result oriented thinking: "but I am low risk, so I don't want to pay".

I would prefer the Congress make and pass laws that are constitutional. Income taxes are constitutional. Direct captitation tax penalties are illegal.

punter : wouldn't it be EV neutral? We could just as easily be the genetic freak that never needs medical attention as we could be the genetic freak that has to live in a bubble.

I was more looking for the rational behind compulsory auto insurance, although obviously there is a lot of over lap on the health care topic. I don't see why it's a huge deal if I go without insuring my automobile... I mean if I get into an accident shouldn't YOUR insurance cover you? It's not like the arson is the guy who's got to register for house insurance.

suzzer : I wasn't blessed like you to know everything, so sometimes I need to make threads like this to gain insight into how the world operates. Glad to see you are being constructive though, and not just bitching about what other people are doing.

EV neutral with respect to actual money is +EV in utility if you are the slightest bit risk averse. Also, if more better healthcare results in an overall healthier society, this is +EV as well.

Of course you have to weigh that against potential -EV from less individual freedom.

Insurance companies won't go bust in this situation. They will basically raise their prices such that the only people who will buy insurance are the high risk people.

If all roads were privatized, it would be extremely likely that all of these roads would require people to have purchased liability insurance to cover accidents. There is a cost of driving that you could damage someone else. By not paying for that, you have a negative externality that pushes the costs of your actions onto someone else. Unless the cost to enforce such a policy was great, then chances are this would exist.

of course if you throw in the moral hazard of fatties / smokers / alcoholics / people that ride bicycles without seats or other idiotic and dangerous behavior / not having to face the financial consequences of their ill advised life choices that's another story. anyway this whole hypothetical seems to be based upon the assumption that if you eliminate the market (in part or in whole) you can have equivalent results which flies in the face of the experience of the human race and the totality of economic doctrine.