Posted on 11/24/2009 6:43:28 PM PST by Kaslin
Is Congress going through the ordeal of trying to enact health care reform only to have one of the main pillars — requiring individuals to obtain insurance — declared unconstitutional? An interesting debate for a constitutional law seminar. In the real world, not a big worry.
"This issue is not serious," says Walter Dellinger, acting solicitor general during the Clinton administration.
But it's being taken seriously in some quarters, so it's worth explaining where the Constitution grants Congress the authority to impose an individual mandate. There are two short answers: the power to regulate interstate commerce and the power to tax.
First, the Commerce Clause. Spending on health care consumes 16% — and growing — of the gross national product. There is hardly an individual activity with greater effect on commerce than the consumption of health care.
If you arrive uninsured at an emergency room, that has ripple effects through the national economy — driving up costs and premiums for everyone.
If you choose to go without insurance, that limits the size of the pool of insured individuals and — assuming you are young and healthy — drives up premium costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
this is the most retarded explanation I’ve ever read
(apologies in advance to retarded people)
sometimes you just have to think.
glancing at this...this is soap-opera level reasoning.
I believe what we will see...if all of this comes to pass and the Supreme Court doesn’t toss it...is a month-by-month game.
By the summer of 2014 (a year into this...remember, nothing starts till spring of 2013)...the numbers won’t match the 2009 chart. The guy in charge will have to edge fees and personal costs up at least one to two percent.
By the fall of 2015...as we edge into the primary season...more costs will be identified and various problems with the maintenance of the insurance plan will start to be questioned. Whoever is the democratic candidate for 2016’s presidential race....will have to find some massive part of the US government to trim and toss that money into this pit.
By the summer of 2016...we will find most companies have dumped their private policies and gone to the public option only. Most employees will be unhappy and now disenchantment will grow by leaps and bounds. The election of 2016...is mostly about an “old” topic...national health care....and the problem is that no one can fess up to show the true solution to this.
By the summer of 2018...the public will identify the national program a failure similar to the Canada program. The question will be tossed out to the public if they would accept the termination of this and go back to private healthcare. It’ll fail.
By 2020....seven years into the program, and in the midst of the presidential race....the entire program will consume more than DOD’s costs. Various senators will be fired and an entire switch of representatives will occur. The program will be taken apart and most of the public goes back to their old health care. Thirty-five million Americans are left with no policy whatsoever.
2024...some presidential candidate comes out and says we need national healthcare. And the mess starts up again.
We seem to get national defense done without the benefit of a draft just fine. But which is the greater imposition on your liberty? Forcing you to buy health insurance or turning your entire life over to the government for them to use as they please for a few years.
If you put the brain of Ruth Marcus in a Jaybird it would fly backward and upside down.
If the government can mandate us to buy health coverage then they can also tell us to buy new cars from GM!
Walter Dellinger was the District of Columbia's lawyer in the Heller case, in which he thought the Second Amendment was no big deal, either.
Wonder what he thinks is a big deal?
This is the definition of infinite govt power, the exact opposite of the vision of our Founding Fathers.
No, I guess that's not a big deal, either -- checked it with Walter Dellinger.
Wonder what the Communists over at ACLU have to say about Obama's proposed salt tax?
If Ruth Marcus arrives at work without her muzzle on, that has an unfortunate ripple effect, too.
“If you arrive uninsured at an emergency room, that has ripple effects through the national economy — driving up costs and premiums for everyone.”
Only because the federal government FORCES providers to treat these patients. Take away that federal guarantee and the risk of being without coverage looms much larger: it might even motivate some uninsured to get coverage. After that, uncompensated care becomes a business decision. Some nonprofit hospitals may continue to provide such care based on their mission, as a community benefit to justify tax exemption or because philanthropic donations provide them the means to bankroll the care. Other facilities may cut back or stop altogether.
Rather than resort to a draconian, constitutionally questionable change in policy to redress a problem created by another policy, it would be better to repeal the latter and then observe how much the uninsured problem shrinks on its own once distortionary federal policy is eliminated.
Comrade, you must learn to love Big Brother in the new USSA.
This moron figures that since health care is a business (e.g. commerce) that this gives Congress the right to regulate it? Are you kidding me?
Using that misguided argument, ANY form of commerce whatsoever, any business done in the United States, is subject to federal regulation? That, sir, is TYRANNY!!
Congress has savaged the Interstate Commerce Clause so egregiously for so long that an Amendment to the Constitution is desperately needed. Come the revolution of 2010, one of our many new Congresscritters MUST propose such an Amendment.
Would Mark Levin or Robert Bork be willing to write such an Amendment?
I'm sure you've stumbled onto the wrong site, Karl.
It's not interstate commerce. One of the biggest problems with health insurance is that "interstate commerce" in health insurance is forbidden by federal law. The federal gov't can't have it both ways, forbidding interstate commerce in something then regulating it on the grounds that it's interstate commerce.
It's not power to tax either. Despite the huge cumulative tax burden, it is compulsion to purchase good/services - under penalty (which is in bad faith being called a "tax").
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