U.S. Supreme Court: Is healthcare reform constitutional?

[The Straight Story]

U.S. Supreme Court: Is healthcare reform constitutional?


WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Republicans fighting a losing battle to stop Democratic healthcare reform in Congress may have a couple of aces up their sleeve -- the Constitution and the conservative bent of the U.S. Supreme Court.

While Democrats have the power to enact reform based on congressional numbers alone, evoking much GOP angst, at least one powerful Republican official is vowing to challenge key parts of the legislation once it is enacted and signed into law.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum said in a statement last week he is ready, willing and able to take healthcare reform to court.

After criticizing healthcare reform in general, McCollum said: "Most concerning is the individual mandate that a person must pay a fine or tax if he or she does not obtain federally required healthcare insurance. I have grave concerns about the constitutionality of this mandate. Such a 'living tax' is worrisome because it would be levied on a person who does nothing, a person who simply wishes not to be forced to buy health insurance coverage."

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/01/03/US-Supreme-Court-Is-healthcare-reform-constitutional/UPI-66781262506740/

[qanda]

1. Honestly, my concern mirrors that of McCollum's

Why should a person be fined if they don't want to buy useless health insurance that won't pay for anything if they get injured or sick? This whole thing just makes me ill.

[The Straight Story]

2. Seems wrong to me to be forced to buy something just because you exist

It is not like normal taxes, where you work and pay x% and the legislature defines where the money the goes.

This is something you have to choose and pay for, just for being alive.

[fasttense]

3. I don't see how it is any different from being forced to buy car insurance.

In order to drive legally you have to spend thousands of dollars a year in car insurance premiums that frequently go up after you have had an accident and use the insurance. I've always felt car insurance mandates were illegal. Some people say you can choose to drive a car or not. But in many rural areas, if you don't drive, you can't buy food and clothing. Car insurance mandates set by states are as unconstitutional as health insurance mandates.

Maybe the Republicons will do us all a favor and challenge all such mandates.

[clear eye]

4. The states are permitted to do many things the federal gov't can't.

The original idea of the Constitution was that the federal gov't is permitted to do only those things that the founders thought were necessary to bind the states into one functional country and wrote into the Constitution. Everything else was to be the choice of the states, ergo "states' rights".

Old-fashioned conservatives have been for years decrying the "judicial activism" that has expanded the phrase "and provide for the general welfare" into all sorts of things that they feel weren't intended.

The SCOTUS "conservatives" are actually more corporatists, so I don't think this insurance co. bailout will bother them a bit.