Honestly, I laughed when I read the prompt to the part it says, "failure to do so could mean jail time or payment of fine" and that's because I was thinking of how such would be in my country that takes everything to the extreme especially in cases of money, this is going to be a new scope.
Of course, the mandate proposal itself has a good intention for the country people and I for one, I'd say this kind of mandate is for people like me who would never on my own go do any checkup, it just happens when I'm faced with a crisis or it's a compulsory action for an occasion.
In my country, there are only few of the poor or middle class who prioritize their medical checkup and most of them are with companies or work places that requires yearly or quarterly checkups. Many know the importance of these checkups, but tend to worry more about the fee to be paid.
I have no reason not to believe that my country people will still find their ways to maneuver the mandate even when they see people getting punished for going against it. Some people will even prefer to pay their way out of doing the checkup than actually doing it, maybe it's lesser.
And there will be those who will find ways to make huge amount of money out of this mandate, maybe the doctors increasing fees for medical check ups or jobless people finding those who don't do their checkups to get them to pay fine that they will get commission for lol.
As I'm writing this, I'm smiling because I can't laugh about it, it's sad but funny what I think would happen when such a mandate is passed. Considering past experiences, there's bound to be corrupt ways of applying this mandate to the disadvantage of the poor or unprivileged ones.
But if I will pick sides, I'd say this mandate won't be all bad to be put in place but with lots of conditions that would make it work for everyone or it shouldn't be made at all. First off, awareness should created for the people to understand the importance of their regular medical checkup.
Another thing is that, the Government should prepare to make provisions for free medical checkups every month or quarterly or yearly specific for the below average citizens. This way, they don't have to pay all the time for their medical check ups and would keep them regular.
Of course, this also means the Government will have to make sure the medical checkup fees are close to nothing to worry about when it's not free. Hospitals and clinics are bound to take advantage of such mandates but they won't if the Government make sure of the amount to be paid.
If these things can't be put in place, I see no need of such mandate. Awareness should just be created everywhere that it is important to do regular checkups and we would have more people doing it over time. This is just my thought.
Images are AI generated