Based on the opinion expressed in this article, and an interview I listened to on NPR, it seems that the individual mandate included in the President's health care law is in real danger.
This is shocking to many of the law's supporters, who seem to have overlooked that a well-intentioned law could run contrary to the Constitution by extending Federal power beyond it's legal limit. Even if the law fulfils what they see as a moral obligation of government, this does not make it constitutional.
Of course, by the time the Court issues its opinion in the fall, they could uphold the mandate and all this become moot.
27 March 2012
Health Law in Peril
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I have been trying to read and watch as much as possible on this subject lately. I certainly don't have a "command" of all the issues involved by any stretch but it seems to me "ObamaCare" boils down to the premise that...if you allow the government to force people to purchase Health Care, what else can the government force them to do? Where DOES it end? One judge indicated perhaps they could make us all buy cell phones if the government decided they were essential for emergency services. Another judge wondered if we'd all have to buy broccoli if ordered to. One judge in defense mentioned Social Security, which apparently faced the same challenges when it was first introduced...but insisted that program, like Health Care, was so important to a nation's well being it then can be forced on its populace. (I thought Social Security might be a bad example since it is going broke...) Another judge spoke of millions of young, uninsured people putting a strain on our Health Care system because in an emergency they have to be treated. I've never said National Health Care would be easy for a country whose current system is so flawed and filled with special interests and lobbyists...but right now as well-intentioned as the cause is I do think it sounds this has been approached somewhat scatterbrained. I was shocked to hear your "penalty" for not having health care would be reconciled on your taxes. Good Lord, I thought the goal was a flat tax to do away with 99% of the current tax code...not add Health Care to it!
And somebody somewhere had to know once you placed it in the context of a tax that too would be argued in the courts. While I know millions of people have already been aided by parts of this program, there are so many states and interests lined up to oppose full implementation I don't see it ever coming to pass regardless of its validity in respect to the Constitution. And in its present form, I can understand why.
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