WaPo:
Federal courts in Michigan and Virginia have upheld the law as constitutional, but Monday, a federal court in Virginia reached the opposite result. These and other cases will continue through our courts as opponents try to block the law. But these attacks are wrong on the law, and if allowed to succeed, they would have devastating consequences for everyone with health insurance.
[…]
The legal arguments made against the law gloss over this problem even as opponents have sought to invent new constitutional theories and dig up old ones that were rejected 80 years ago.
Opponents claim the individual responsibility provision is unlawful because it “regulates inactivity.” But none of us is a bystander when it comes to health care. All of us need health care eventually. Do we pay in advance, by getting insurance, or do we try to pay later, when we need medical care?
The individual responsibility provision says that as participants in the health-care market, Americans should pay for insurance if they can afford it. That’s important because when people who don’t have insurance show up at emergency rooms, we don’t deny them care. The costs of this uncompensated care – $43 billion in 2008 – are then passed on to doctors, hospitals, small businesses and Americans who have insurance.
As two federal courts have already held, this unfair cost-shifting harms the marketplace. For decades, Supreme Court decisions have made clear that the Constitution allows Congress to adopt rules to deal with such harmful economic effects, which is what the law does – it regulates how we pay for health care by ensuring that those who have insurance don’t continue to pay for those who don’t. Because of the long-held legal precedent of upholding such provisions, even President Ronald Reagan’s solicitor general, Charles Fried, called legal objections to the law “far-fetched.”
Well, then Charles Fried is for an end to liberty, too, I guess.
Because that’s what this legal ruling will be about: are there limits to the power of the federal government over our economic choices? Holder, Sebelius, the Democrats, and at least two courts thus far have said no, there aren’t: you should have to buy a particular product if you can afford it, and the government will tell you what that product is. That is, the government can compel you to spend your money on a product of their choosing.
If the federal government can use the Commerce Clause to regulate economic inactivity as a form of activity, the Commerce Clause will legally regulate everything — and the federal government essentially owns your wealth. Couple that with the Kelo ruling, wherein we learned the government can also take whatever property it wants from you under the guise of using it for “public good” — and it is clear that, by following a non-intentionalist interpretive model, the courts effectively will have ruled Constitutional protections for individual liberty unconstitutional, and the limits on a limited government illimitable.
How you get there matters. Just so you know.
If they take ownership of everything you earn, the only response will be to not earn anything as far as they can tell.
See also: the long-standing and largely below-constitutional-radar child custody industry fomented by federal policy unifying a splinter kangaroo court system. Direct harm to rights, liberties, and lives made impressively durable in standard practice — to the point of erecting entire industries — by the principle that once established, any government momentum is very rarely slowed.
It’s marginally interesting to me that folks generally have little trouble conceiving of the free-rider problem but apparently cannot readily conceive the flip-side of that coin, namely, the unfree-rider problem, which in my estimation is a few orders of magnitude larger.
According to those figures, the uninsured cost $43 billion per year in 2008. What’s the additional cost of the health-care legislation? I believe it’s significantly higher, no? So, how has it improved anything?
Yeah, I know, we all know this wasn’t about health insurance, or cost savings, or anything they said it was about. The people in government want their hooks in everything, and if this survives, they will have their wish.
Exactly, #4. 43 billion is a lot of money, but nowhere near what Obamacare will cost per year. The simplest solution would be to reimburse the hospitals out of the general fund, or give that payout money to the states and let them dispense it, and move on. Not the best solution, but it’s cheaper than Obamacare’s flaming pile of pricey dog poo on our doorsteps and introduces fewer new problems. That should be the comparison for any proposed idea to help those who genuinely need medical care they can’t afford. If it’s more expensive than simply paying for that care, it should be instantly rejected, and if it’s less, then let’s discuss the details because we might have a winner.
Even if it were twice as efficient and cost-effective as the private-sector alternative, and could be proven to save tens of thousands of lives each year, it would still be outside the federal government’s enumerated powers. Not that such limits have been recognized in the last 150 years or so…
Every entitlement program we have is outside the enumerated powers. I’m not looking for a constitutional argument, because almost nothing passes that test, I’m looking for a monetary one, because that is something even people ignorant about the constitution can get behind. The fact that constitutional ways of reforming health care (allow competition, reducing regulation, tort reform) also make it cheaper is, of course, welcome to my way of thinking.
My complaint is that your choice of tactics legitimizes the conceit that the Feds have any authority to begin with. People who are ignorant of the Constitution need to be educated, not enabled.
I got no problem with arguments on inefficiency and corruption as a supplement; I just want to make sure that the sheep get reminded on a frequent basis that what they’re talking about is illegal in the first place.
One of the basic premises of their argument is flawed too. simply because one chooses to not purchase insurance does not necessarily lead to this cost shifting that they speak of. I you can afford to pay for you medical treatment on an as needed basis, you will not be a burden to the taxpayers. They simply assert that you will.
“Any government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.” — Gerald Ford
You’re letting your idealism show through, Squid. You cannot force people to be educated, and the MFM is not going to help. Could you imagine how much better the media could be if it did a quick comment about legislation like this and giving an opinion (a real, as little biased as possible opinion) on the constitutionality of it? Or giving a measured opinion from both sides about it?
We know the Fed does not have the constitutional authority for this as well as a host of other measures. However, they have taken the power, and taking it back will not happen ideologically, it will happen monetarily. People understand money. People understand spending beyond your means. You can add an ideological argument to the mix, but you should always add a monetary one if you want to succeed.
Americans, or at least our American political philosophy is idealistic, I think, so good for Squid. So though we don’t assume we can force anyone to be educated cranky-d, doesn’t the very idea of citizens ruling themselves presume these same citizens would choose to be educated? And know that without education, their hopes of remaining in a position to rule themselves would be lost?
You can be quite idealistic yourself, sdferr. People are what they are, and a huge chunk will continue to choose not to be educated, out of laziness if nothing else.
I hope you and Squid realize that I think being idealistic is great, and that you are both correct in what you say. People should care enough to educate themselves, and hew to tenets that have been proven successful in the past. Arguments that come from the principle that the Fed has limited powers and should return to that state should be sufficient to sway the majority of the electorate. I just don’t think it will work that way in the end, and that one must always frame things as an economic argument, at least partially, in order to capture that portion of the electorate who is not interested in anything else other than a monetary argument.
People should care enough, you say (and I say with you) but of course this doesn’t mean they will. After all, as we can see in Dr. Franklin’s reply to the unknown lady who asked “What have you given us?” there was — and I believe still is — some question as to whether the thing can work at all. Folks sometimes say “It’s an experiment”: I sometimes think, by golly they’re right, and the answer isn’t finally in.