…to Obamacare’s individual mandate provision, without ever once explaining why there’s a constitutional challenge to the individual mandate?
Here you go. In the interests of educating the populace – even those poor unfortunates who are stuck getting their news from The New York Times. God help them – here’s the central argument: forcing individuals to engage in commercial activity is not a Constitutionally enumerated right of Congress. Buying health insurance is a commercial activity. Proponents argue that the Commerce Clause applies, but if it does then frankly the Tenth Amendment is meaningless. The Ninth, for that matter. This would, of course, shock the life out of the Federalists and the anti-Federalists, given that these Amendments were explicitly ratified to reassure the latter that there would be clear limits to governmental power in the new Republic.
No, I am not going to explain any of those terms: if you have to ask what any of them mean, then you are not qualified for participation in this conversation.
Anyway, via RCP.
Moe Lane
PS: Almost forgot: yes, most locales require you to buy car insurance if you wish to operate a car. Guess what? There’s no federal mandate requiring citizens to own a car. That means that car ownership is ultimately a choice – unlike, say, breathing. That means that the analogy is too tenuous to succeed.
We can also say that congress doesn’t have the right to tax inactivity w.r.t. mandates.
The moment they move to tax my inactivity…
Antisocial & Rob: A tax on inactivity sounds a tad regressive, but might be a good way to solve the obesity epidemic.
Those who point to the Clinton efforts on healthcare and the GOP attempts during that time overlook the obvious: it failed because the people didn’t want it.
Former AG Bill McCollum said if the mandate fails, the whole bill implodes because of the way it’s written. I read the healthcare bill, the whole sorry mess. I’ve never seen more invasive, obscurely written, anti-healthcare policy. Progs assail conservatives for critting the IPAB, but the fact is the way the bill is written, that board can pretty much do whatever they want.
Progs always view the Constitution from a standpoint of expansion–how can it be interpreted to permit whatever idea they think of next? Conservs view it from a standpoint of limiting the powers of the central government.
If SCOTUS upholds this sorry bill (and if Kagan is permitted to vote at all), we should demand the justices voting for it be dismissed because they are a threat to the Republic.
I’ve often said there’s a clear remedy for healthcare reform. Every American should simply cancel his health policy, including Medicare. The free market will then proceed to free itself from the boondoggle created by government’s intrusion into healthcare to begin with.
As an aside, there is no obesity epidemic. The BMI used to determine ideal weights was created by a very dead Belgian, Adolphe Quetelet who created his statistical base in an effort to determine the model man–all white, all Belgian. That we fret over what others choose to do their bodies says it all. The only reason we are preoccupied with it involves the government’s intrusion and the resulting costs.