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WHEN THE HEALTHCARE MANDATE HITS THE COURTS
David Swanson The Public Record - Does the United States Constitution allow Congress to force people to purchase a product (health insurance) from a private corporation, and fine them or tax them if they refuse?
The answer is a matter of debate, but there is little dispute that such an act of Congress would be unprecedented.
Sheldon Laskin, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Baltimore Law School who has argued that the Constitution forbids such a move, describes the new and dangerous can of worms it would open up:
"If Congress can compel the purchase of insurance from a for profit insurance company, it can compel the purchase of any commodity if there is an arguable public policy to support it.
"The auto industry is collapsing? Forget Cash for Clunkers, just order Americans to buy cars or tax them if they don't. Obesity crisis? Order Americans to join health clubs, or tax them if they don't. If Congress gets away with this, there is no stopping point and Big Business will have succeeded in making Americans into involuntary consumers whenever it so chooses."
Outlandish? Consider this: Many Supreme Court observers expect a ruling, quite possibly on Jan. 12, 2010, in the case of Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission that would lift all limits on corporate funding of elections, meaning that national and international corporations could swamp the election system with so much money that any influence from actual citizens would be utterly negated.
If you were a corporation and you owned the legislature, and laws were being passed requiring people to purchase products, and you owed it to your shareholders to maximize profits, what would you feel compelled to do?
Exactly.
. . . The argument against an individual health insurance mandate is not an argument against a civilized healthcare system. The government can tax the public and/or corporations and pay for healthcare, even with those payments going to private businesses, without running up against the same Constitutional hurdles or the same concerns from observers wary of creeping corporatism.
The Constitution provides Congress with certain enumerated powers in Article I and explicitly leaves all other powers to the states or the people in the 10th Amendment.
So, the constitutional question, for those who still care whether laws are constitutional, is whether the power to force you to buy a horrible product you do not want from a disreputable monopolistic corporation that pays regular bribes to your elected representatives in the form of campaign "contributions" is specifically listed anywhere in Article I.
Article I gives Congress the power to "lay and collect taxes" as well as the power to “regulate commerce … among the several states." Interpretations of these clauses have varied.
Predictions as to where the current Supreme Court would come down vary. I find Laskin's arguments the most persuasive.
The answer is a matter of debate, but there is little dispute that such an act of Congress would be unprecedented.
Sheldon Laskin, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Baltimore Law School who has argued that the Constitution forbids such a move, describes the new and dangerous can of worms it would open up:
"If Congress can compel the purchase of insurance from a for profit insurance company, it can compel the purchase of any commodity if there is an arguable public policy to support it.
"The auto industry is collapsing? Forget Cash for Clunkers, just order Americans to buy cars or tax them if they don't. Obesity crisis? Order Americans to join health clubs, or tax them if they don't. If Congress gets away with this, there is no stopping point and Big Business will have succeeded in making Americans into involuntary consumers whenever it so chooses."
Outlandish? Consider this: Many Supreme Court observers expect a ruling, quite possibly on Jan. 12, 2010, in the case of Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission that would lift all limits on corporate funding of elections, meaning that national and international corporations could swamp the election system with so much money that any influence from actual citizens would be utterly negated.
If you were a corporation and you owned the legislature, and laws were being passed requiring people to purchase products, and you owed it to your shareholders to maximize profits, what would you feel compelled to do?
Exactly.
. . . The argument against an individual health insurance mandate is not an argument against a civilized healthcare system. The government can tax the public and/or corporations and pay for healthcare, even with those payments going to private businesses, without running up against the same Constitutional hurdles or the same concerns from observers wary of creeping corporatism.
The Constitution provides Congress with certain enumerated powers in Article I and explicitly leaves all other powers to the states or the people in the 10th Amendment.
So, the constitutional question, for those who still care whether laws are constitutional, is whether the power to force you to buy a horrible product you do not want from a disreputable monopolistic corporation that pays regular bribes to your elected representatives in the form of campaign "contributions" is specifically listed anywhere in Article I.
Article I gives Congress the power to "lay and collect taxes" as well as the power to “regulate commerce … among the several states." Interpretations of these clauses have varied.
Predictions as to where the current Supreme Court would come down vary. I find Laskin's arguments the most persuasive.
Labels: HEALTH INSURANCE
3 Comments:
I think people should be forced to buy houses they can't afford. That would turn around the economy.
This gives The Supremely Corrupt Court the opportunity to uphold that contorted laughable reach for executive power known as the misinterpretation of the commerce clause, possibly even making it into gospel.
"Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that dramatically increased the power of the federal government to regulate economic activity. A farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat to feed his chickens. The U.S. government had imposed limits on wheat production based on acreage owned by a farmer, in order to drive up wheat prices during the Great Depression, and Filburn was growing more than the limits permitted. Filburn was ordered to destroy his crops and pay a fine.
The Supreme Court, interpreting the United States Constitution's Commerce Clause (which permits the United States Congress to "regulate Commerce . . . among the several States") decided that, because Filburn's wheat growing activities reduced the amount of wheat he would buy for chicken feed on the open market, and because wheat was traded nationally, Filburn's production of more wheat than he was allotted was affecting interstate commerce, and so could be regulated by the federal government.
This was a dramatic reversal of over 150 years of precedent restricting the federal government's power to regulate commerce, which previously had been limited to such areas as transportation across state boundaries on roads and rivers, actual movement of goods between states, and prohibition of punitive taxes imposed by a state on goods from another." WIKIPEDIA.COM
This is the same executive branch ands cowed legislative branch that says they can legally force you to buy bogus insurance from their corruptors, yet they can't find the trillions missing from DOD and have yet to offer a plausible explanation for the September eleventh two thousand one attacks on the World Trade Center.
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