The Courts are saying so too.
The Justice Department has found Raich an exceedingly useful tool in battling the legal challenges to Obamacare. In the Florida lawsuit, the DOJ claims that “Individuals who self-insure engage in economic activity at least as much as the plaintiffs in Raich.”
The same goes for Michigan, where a federal judge recently upheld the individual mandate as a legitimate exercise of Congress’s Commerce Clause power: “As living, breathing beings, who do not oppose medical services on religious grounds, they cannot opt out of this market.”
The words “Gonzales v. Raich” kick off the government’s Commerce Clause argument in the Virginia litigation.
You are free to believe as you wish.
Wickard v. Filburn can be legislated around by Congress. After all...people still grow food for their own consumption today without the govt. telling them how many rows of tomatoes they may grow or arresting them for growing to much...or too little.
What can govt. not do under the substantial effects doctrine of the Commerce Clause in your opinion?
In my opinion, nothing at all. I think the whole doctrine is nonsense. Uprooting it will be an important step back toward limited, constitutional government. My point is just that Gonzales v Raich didn't add to that doctrine in any significant way. The courts and the DOJ could cite Wickard and get the same mileage they get from Raich.
Of course Congress doesn't have to use all the power the Court says it has. But using that power doesn't help justify different and greater usurpations. I'd like to see a Republican Congress say that Wickard was wrong and it would interpret its power more narrowly than the Court has, but that's a fantasy. Back in the real world, Congress doesn't hurt the argument that the individuals mandate is unconstitutional by accepting Wickard and acting accordingly.
The argument that it does is a manifestation of the civil war some foolish libertarians want to start within the broader conservative movement. The author is taking up any stick he can find to beat “social conservatives” with and he doesn't seem to care whether he's making any sense. Now of all times, this isn't constructive.