Is the Affordable Care Act Constitutional? 2/22/12 (Richard Epstein v Theodore Ruger)

I used to post these debates a lot, then I stopped, but now it's getting timely again, with ObamaCare being argued before the Supreme Court later this month. Richard Epstein (now ay NYU), BTW, authored (or at least co-authored) one the amicus briefs in this case.

This post is dedicated to insomniacs like myself, and may also be "bookmark for later" material for those who do mundane things like leave the house in the morning in order to work for a living. But from my past posts, I know there's some of FreeRepublic who know about Richard Epstein's work and enjoy hearing him speak.

The answer is constitutional with respect to what?

Commerce Clause? No, not easily except by some weird convoluted argument which I think the SCOTUS will shoot down.

16th Amendment Tax? Yes, it will upheld as tax that is constitutional under the 16th Amendment.

I had this discussion just days ago with a Freeper that was quite resourceful at putting up material and references to try and prove that Obamacare could not present itself as a penalty for failing to purchase. Well, that’s not true. As long as the penalty is tied to non-payment of a tax, it is constitutional.

And Obamacare indeed does tax high cost insurance plans at 40% above an arbitrary threshold that it sets and also taxes high income earners (250k for individual filers, 200k for joint).

Obamacare is a socialist redistribution scheme pure and simple. It will tax the ‘rich’ and distribute health to the ‘non-rich’ via a form of highly expanded Medicaid.

The Freeper and I went over how FDR got his Social Security to survive the Supreme Court. We reviewed the historical documents, we see exactly how the Left followed the FDR playbook to a tee in writing the Obamacare Act. In fact many on the Left have openly stated that they were following the FDR playbook including Biden.

FDR simply changed the words of the Social Insurance plan from compulsory contribution to a government backed annuity to an ‘Earnings Tax’ and he made a famous statement as to why he did that.

Biden also said in the press 2 years ago that if Obamacare is not upheld by the SCOTUS, then Social Security would likewise follow as unconstitutional.

I would like to see Obamacare dead and buried deep in the bowels of history but unfortunately this seer sees Freepers as overconfident that Obamacare will fail the Commerce Clause test (which I am pretty sure it will) and then be horrified that it is left standing because of the 16th Amendment.

The good news I see is that when Obamacare is upheld by its authority under the 16th Amendment is that it should force a serious presidential debate on the need for, effects of and results of the 16th Amendment in American life.

Praying that if Gingrich elected, he will immediately call for repeal of the 16th Amendment and passage of H.R.25 which is the FairTax (not the Flat Tax which is a 16th Amendment carnation that always grows back like a cancer into metastasis of taxation).

Here is the information that people must study:

http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_faq

16th Amendment Tax? Yes, it will upheld as tax that is constitutional under the 16th Amendment.

The legislation was not written this way. This arguement was made, analyzed, considered, and rejected by one Federal Judge.

Similarly, the arguement that, even though a severability clause was explicitly taken out before the final vote, the bill should be treated as if it still had a severability clause, was also made, analyzed, considered, and rejected.

Both written analyses are persuasive, so I cannot agree with your judgement

If you review the final Affordable Act (Obamacare) you will see in Sections 9002 and 9015 I think under Title IX Revenue Provisions that they make explicit the income taxes to be made to raise revenue.

Let me give you the link, Here it is:

http://burgess.house.gov/UploadedFiles/hr3590_health_care_law_2010.pdf

So yes unfortunately they wrote it as a tax, actually a tax and redistribute scheme, pure socialism. Just like Social Security. They knew exactly what they were doing.

The only thing a judge has struck down is the individual mandate but that doesn’t matter anymore because the Appeals Court ruled that the rest of it could stand (severability was implied).

So even though they look to lose the individual mandate, they get the tax power to destroy existing health plans and put everyone on a greatly expanded state medicaid. The taxation on incomes will eventually be a tax on all wage earners similar to Medicare tax.

People that don’t buy insurance may not be forced to buy it without an individual mandate but those that can be taxed will pay a penalty but ultimately it will be deducted from a paycheck.

The welfare class will receive free medical based on some sort of card. Private health insurers will become scarce. Wage earners will be taxed.

What will be left in the end is a tax and everyone will in some way be covered for medical according to government policy and standards.

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