Wash. Times revives myth that health reform is unconstitutional
In a January 7 editorial, The Washington Times took a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report out of context to revive the myth that the individual mandate included in the health reform legislation is unconstitutional. In fact, CRS does not conclude that the mandate is unconstitutional, and numerous legal experts have debunked the claim.
Wash. Times takes CRS report out of context to claim individual mandate is unconstitutional
Wash. Times quoted CRS to suggest that it found that individual mandate was unconstitutional. Discussing the constitutionality of the individual mandate included in health care reform legislation being considered by Congress, the Times stated in its editorial: "[N]umerous legal analysts challenge the mandate's constitutionality. Last July, the Congressional Research Service explained why." The editorial then quoted from a July 24, 2009, CRS report:
"One could argue that while regulation of the health insurance industry or the health care system could be considered economic activity [subject to congressional authority], regulating a choice to purchase health insurance is not. It may also be questioned whether a requirement to purchase health insurance is really a [legitimate] regulation of an economic activity or enterprise. ..."
In fact, CRS report did not conclude that the legislation was unconstitutional. Indeed, later in the same paragraph from which the Times quoted - which concerned the constitutionality of the individual mandate under the Interstate Commerce Clause - CRS stated that "there is plenty of evidence that the purchase of health insurance has an effect on the commerce of the nation. For example in 2007, health care expenditures in the United States grew 6.1% to $2.2 trillion, or $7,421 per person, and accounted for 16.2% of gross domestic product." CRS concluded its section on the Commerce Clause by stating [footnote omitted]:
One may argue that an individual coverage requirement, while not commercial in nature, is an essential part of Congress's current regulation of the health care industry. A reviewing court could consider whether the absence of a requirement to purchase health care would undercut the regulation of the health care industry as a whole. In making this determination, a court may look to the involvement of the federal government in the regulation of health care generally to decide whether a requirement to purchase health insurance could be seen as an essential component of this regulation. Given the federal government's fairly significant role in health care regulation (e.g., ERISA, the Public Health Service Act), the argument that a requirement to purchase insurance is an "essential part" of the regulation may become more viable. In addition, if a requirement to have health insurance were passed as part of a comprehensive health care reform package, this may reinforce the idea that it is acceptable under the Commerce Clause as part of a larger health care reform effort.
Wash. Times claim about individual mandate forwards a conservative myth. Conservative media figures including Fox News' senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano, Fox News hosts Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Mike Huckabee, and serial health care misinformer Betsy McCaughey have claimed that the individual mandate is unconstitutional.
Numerous experts have concluded that individual mandate is, in fact, constitutional. In fact, legal scholars -- including George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr, who recently served as a special counsel to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) during Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation proceedings -- have pointed out the flaws in conservatives' arguments, including that regulation of the health care sector falls under Congress' broad power to regulate interstate commerce and that Congress has repeatedly passed laws regulating health care and health insurance. In a December 2009 paper for the American Constitution Society, National Senior Citizen Law Center public policy counsel Simon Lazarus added that arguments that the individual mandate is unconstitutional "have no basis in law, neither in the grants of authority to Congress in Article I nor in limitations on that authority in the Bill of Rights, nor in the case law interpreting these provisions. Opponents' real grievance is with the law in its current state. Their hope is that a majority of the Supreme Court will seize on a challenge to mandatory health insurance as an occasion to make major changes in current law."
This is only fair. If we're going to require insurance companies to end denials of coverage based on pre-existing conditions, we need to incentivize younger, healthier people to buy into the system, or else the reform fails.
Furthermore, there is the issue of who pays when a young, healthy person ends up in the emergency room needing $1000s worth of care he or she can't afford, or when a formerly young, healthy person decides to buy coverage once he or she gets sick.
Everyone pays in, whether you buy insurance or not. It's only fair, and it's the only way reform can possibly work.
And of course it's constitutional: it's a tax penalty, not an actual requirement to buy coverage. If you're going to leech off the system, and only buy insurance once you have a serious condition, you should absolutely pay a tax penalty to help fund care for those who need it, and want it, but can't afford it.
Ummm...here's a common sense approach...
Assuming "all your eyes" is correct... why even call it an "individual mandate?"
Why not simply say that taxes will be increased due to this bill, but you can write the increase off if you are insured? Isn't that the same thing? If not, please clarify.
I'm a little baffled by this. This is exactly why private insurance companies are demonized: because they currently deny those who do exactly that. That's why there is a "Guaranteed Issue" provision in the bill in the first place.
You're insisting that the people that we are trying to help should be slapped with a "tax penalty" for doing exactly what they do right now.
Either you misspoke, or we're getting our talking points in favor of health reform messed up.
In summary: The uninsured are not engaging in any economic activity, so how can Congress regulate an economic activity that doesn't exist?
You can theoretically mandate that you must be insured to receive care (an economic activity), but you can't mandate that Americans must be insured if they exist (something we do even when we sleep) or else be faced with a penalty.
Which is why reform shouldn't go forth. Fair? Pay for it yourself.
Yeah, I thought not.
It is not fair to characterize all uninsured people who go to an er as freeloaders, just as it is not accurate to claim all uninsured people go to the er as a first resort. How do I know? I was one of my doc's first patients from when he refused anyone who would not pay up front.
The real reason for all of these rules is to force us to single payer
Social Security and Health care would both be far better off had our nanny staters simply required people to have retirement and health savings accounts and the feds and states not tax the accounts. Since they are nanny staters, they would also provide money for those who are too poor to pay for health care. Money -- not insurance, not bureaucracy, not the Secretary who is 'beyond judicial review', not a council deciding which procedures are economic, but money. Money the poor person would eventually pay back. Then the poor person could go to the same doctor the rich person goes to, pay him with the same dollars the rich person pays with and get the same care.
With Pelosi/Reid/0 we're going to get fewer doctors (note the Mayo Clinic in Ariz has stopped taking the lower Medicare payments from patients -- that will escalate) and higher insurance premiums. How else will 0 cover 47,000,000 additional patients with the same or fewer dollars and the same or fewer doctors? CBO doesn't address that. They just take a set of "circumstances" or "what-ifs" handed to it by Harry Reid and say whether the deficit will increase or not. No effort is made to judge the credibility of the "circumstances".
The "mandate" is an interesting question. While mmfa seems to have found some "experts" that think it is constitutional, mmfa didn't do any homework on the issue. There are experts on the other side too, and none of the mmfa cited experts have been able to find an example of the Federal Government forcing people to buy something from a private company. How is that constitutional? If it is under the "commerce clause" then there is nothing in American life that is beyond reach of the federal government. With this reasoning, the "commerce clause" trumps all other rights. That may be what the socialists in the country want, it may be what huge government supporters want, it might be what statists want, but I would bet most individuals in America want the government out of their life, not in it.
Only those who want something for nothing don't mind having the government in their lives. They want free stuff and accept government participation in their lives as the price. Walking down this path will lead to more than just tea parties.
What I predict will happen if the "mandate" becomes law is three things.
1. It will be challenged in the courts.
2. There will be civil disobedience and people won't pay.
How extensive this will be is a guess.
3. Since the "penalty" is $750, many younger people will not
disobey, but will pay the $750. However, $750 isn't sufficient
to make the program solvent. Eventually, if the liberals stay
in power taxes and insurance rates will go up. If they lose
power, then the whole program is likely to collapse.
[Any social program that doesn't have the support of a
significant majority of Americans should die. This one does
not have support. Most polls suggest that 60+% of Americans
don't like this bill and are against it. No conservatives
support it. It is a democrat health care bill that will
collapse, will be repealed will be destroyed by underfunding
it or will be dropped by state governments.]
Reid/Pelosi/0 program and should be scrapped. Universal health care can be successfully achieved, but the bills in the House and Senate are jokes on America and will fail.
If it passes, a Conservative House should simply refuse to fund it. That's the change I'm hoping for.
When I was in my 20s I did not need or want it
I am fully aware that most of you are completley ignorant to the ideas of our Founders. they were classical liberals who bvelived in laiisez faire capitalism and wanted a system of government that deconsolidated power. They never would have approved of the nationl government that we have now. they knew full well from history's test that a heavily consolidated central government would inevitably lead to a form of despotism. that is why they gave us a federalized system whereby the states and the people were mostly sovereign. the central government was given a great deal of power but within a very limited sphere. That limitied sphere was outlined in Article 1, Section 8.
I also aware that some of you state-worshippers will trot out the General Welfare clause as an excuse for the central government to do as it pleases. does it make any sense at all that the Founders would have explicitly given the federal government limitied powers and in the very next sentence give the carte blanche to do anything elses it please. It would be akin to me given you a specific set of rules to follow and at the end proclaiming that you can do anything else you please. the word.
You could make an argument that Hamilton would have liked the general welfare clause to inlcude almost anything and you would be right. He was alone among the Founders in this belief however. Many of his nationalistic/mercantalist ideas were shot down at the Constitutional Convention.