Can Washington Make You Buy Health Insurance?
Yes, yes, says White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Congress has the power to make everyone buy health insurance. "I don't believe there's a lot of case law that would demonstrate the veracity" of comments to the contrary.
Thank you, Mr. Justice Gibbs. We'll see about all that when—if —the matter of Congress' power over private commercial judgments of this nature gets to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Meanwhile the knock-down, drag-out over health insurance "reform" shouldn't be allowed to fuzz up another immensely vital question; to wit, how in James Madison's name have we reached the point that Congress can so much as contemplate telling you, and you, and you, and all of us that we'll buy health insurance, like it or not, Buster? Why do we have to? Because the government says so, isn't that reason enough?
For Mr. Justice Gibbs, and the people who employ him, it is. Just about anything Congress decides to do in the name of uplift seems to be constitutional: In other words, in accord with written stipulations as to what the national government may and may not do.
Several problems arise concerning this fine theory:
—It's nonsense. It contravenes the whole constitutional concept of divided powers: particular functions reserved to particular branches of government. And other powers divided between states and the national government.
—It threatens liberty. A government that knows no limits to its power can be counted on to step more and more heavily on citizens' rights and privileges. All for the "general good" naturally!
—It divides the citizens. On the one hand, those who want particular favors from government; on the other hand, those who deny that government has the right to dispense such favors.
The Obama administration, which desperately wants health care to pass, brushes off such concerns as cranky and relevant mainly to wild-eyed Limbaugh and Palin fans, when in fact concerns about the rightful exercise of government power should inform every legislative debate. Those it doesn't inform are likely to end badly.
Majority support of this or that initiative doesn't legitimize the initiative. Wise or foolish, the thing can't be done at all if doing it isn't within the competency of the body making the effort. And that's never mind how many people favor it
Naturally, reasonable people can disagree about the meaning of prohibitions or permissions written by men long dead. Can we have an Air Force if the Constitution doesn't mention it? What does it mean, "equal protection of the laws"? Is there truly a right to "privacy"? We can argue such questions until the cows come home. Why not, then, some attention to the varied questions arising in the context of health insurance reform? To hear President Obama or Nancy Pelosi or Sen. Harry Reid, you'd imagine a big "Why, sure" succeeds the question, "Can the U.S. government run U.S. health care"? (It runs General Motors, doesn't it? And a lot else since the financial mess began?)
The power to regulate commerce is the power most often invoked in support of the government's right to tell you how and where you can get your health insurance. It's a familiar if feeble stretch of the reasoning powers. Everything under the sun can be seen as affecting interstate commerce: a sneeze, as affecting Kleenex sales; what to order for lunch, if the plastic on the menus reached the restaurant via a truck on a federal highway.
Sure, on those terms, the government can make us buy health insurance. It can make us do anything it wants. That it hasn't, so far, means only it hasn't agreed on every idea designed to convert a free people into a nation of sheep, lolling in pastures supervised thoughtfully by agents of the government.
The health care debate is monumentally important on all possible grounds: not least on the question of what happens if Congress gets away with ordering the American people to buy health insurance—and if the American people knuckle under. Yes, what next for us, comrades?
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Entries(RSS)
So, this would be a new form of poll tax? Except that only the penalty is payable to the Fed, but the tax is payable to a private insurance company. We need to clean house.
This all got started with state laws requiring everybody to have auto insurance. That set the precedent.
It is simply wrong to force anyone to do business with any industry, no matter what. It makes them that industry's slave, working to pay their 'premiums' to their masters. We are slaves to the insurance industry already, and are about to become more thoroughly enslaved to them.
California requires either liability auto insurance or a bond (I think it used to be $5000) for licensed drivers. Perhaps some such system would work for health insurance, lest the uninsured become public charges (that's officialese for freeloaders). It might work if we could eliminate the illegal alien swamping of health care (esp. bad here in California).
Am I missing something here? You aren't going to be buying anything. You're going to be paying a tax for universal health coverage. In exchange, you get universal health coverage. It will be deducted from your paycheck just like FICA and the others. Or am I wrong about this?
The law means nothing in this country, except what the rulers want it to mean. The US isn't a nation of laws anymore. It probably hasn't been for a long, long time, if ever.
The Constitution is a worthless piece of paper.
If Commizar Pelosi can tell me that I must buy insurance, she can also tell me where I can live, what type of house I can have, what occupation I am allowed, and what I may be paid.
Those are what come immediately to mind.
I am hearing the word 'comply'. Why not 'Obey'?
One obeys a law that is mandatory. One complies with a law that is voluntary. Or not. At least that is/was the theory. So by using the word comply tells me they know they have no authority to mandate this. I really think we are up to and are looking down on the line in the sand with this business. I certainly have had it up to my back teeth with this State.
Another aspect to this is that the Federal State is dead broke. Is this really mumbo jumbo to set in place the machinery to power grab ones money and property, chattel and otherwise, to liquidate the same, to fund this dying State? Government is nothing more than an identifiable group of criminals. The Feds and Wall Street have stolen everything that hasn't been nailed down. Now they are selling the fixtures that they can't move.
I don't have a spare $15,000 for some 'policy'. So the five and a half years in FedMax are starting to look pretty good.
I have always wanted to see South America. An article in the current American Angler magazine says Chile is really nice this time of year. Maybe I should visit and overstay my visa. That's never been done before. I shall consult with my neighbors gardener. I believe he has experience in this overstaying business. Si, Si, Senor.
Elections in america are little more than the slaves being able to select an overseer from massa's approved slate of overseers. Same old massa though.
Assuming that this "reform bill" (or something like it) passes, costs are going to INCREASE, if anything. After all, more people being insured means more people will consume health-care services. Medicare and Medicaid spending aren't going to be reduced much as a result of this bill, either
What will happen is that central-government bureaucrats, or their proxies in the newly-regulated and -controlled health insurance companies, are going to be increasingly empowered to micromanage the details of our lives. What we eat, what we drink, whether we exercise or smoke---all those things are going to be noted in some dossier someplace, and made available to central- or provincial-government bureaucrats upon demand. Private-sector health insurance companies (and companies in general) give out incentives for changing one's personal habits already; now they'll have "competition" from the State.
Anyone can see the end result coming: Cuban-style "block committees" monitoring our weight, what we eat, how much television we watch, and so on and so forth. All in the name of "controlling health care costs".
The only consolation I can see in all this is something David noted in # 7 post: the central government is dead broke. Centralizing and nationalizing the health care system like this (actually finishing the job; government already spends over half of all health care dollars in this country anyhow) will simply be the push that send us right over the edge.
One is almost tempted, under such circumstances, to support this measure. At least the end will come swiftly, albeit without much in the way of mercy.
That last post should have read "simply be the push that sends us right over the edge". My bad.
I think Mr Schaeber is right. The Eastern block's socialised healthcare system is long gone now, and people are now celebrating the 20th anniversary of the downfall of the system of which it was a part. Anyone who thinks this system will last has a rude awakening.
In twenty years, the only reminder of the current regime - and of it's newest imposition, socialised healthcare - will be aging idiot leftists and neocons who, since they will still be as delusional as ever, will be reminiscing and talking about how much 'better' things were under their regime, though everyone else will know better. History is about repeat itself.
@8 Mark
Greasy food, alcohol consumption, and smoking are already coming under nanny state scrutiny despite our lack of Cuban-style block committees. The costs will rise due to printing presses increasing the M1 money supply at the rate of 16% per annum. The solution will be when China will refuse to sell the Bureau of Public Debt any bonds unless they are counter-signed by the Commonwealth of Virginia as they were during Martin Van Buren's presidency. The Old Dominion's voters recently proved themselves smart enough to stop Washington's goofy shenanigans.
If the government can order your to take your shoes off at an airport, if it can bus your children to the other side of town via court order, if it can force you to drop your pants and urinate on demand (drug testing), if it can have surveillance cameras up the wazoo, if it can slaughter 100 or so people at Waco, then, yeah, it can order require you to buy health insurance...or else!
Lie in the land o' the free.
Burke101,
Absolutely correct. Sadly, it would require more pages than the health care bill currently going through congress to list them all.