Two weeks ago the Supreme Court agreed to decide the constitutionality of President Obama’s signature piece of legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.
In a surprising act of courage, the Court agreed to decide the divisive case in the midst of what will certainly be one of the most viscerally contentious elections in a century. To their credit, when they could have easily kicked the can down the road and waited until after the election to take the case, they did not. Not only did they accept the case, but they allotted an unprecedented 5 ½ hours of oral argument for it. They fully recognize that their decision will have significant political implications. Not in the sense that it will sway voters one way or another (which it will certainly do) but in that it gives voters the opportunity to take into account the consequences of their 2008 votes when they walk into the booth in November.
However the Court decides, the consequences of that election will be laid bare. It’s not often that voters get such a clear, definitive beginning, middle and potentially end of such a consequential piece of legislation – at least from a legal perspective – within one election cycle.
The central question in the case is a relatively straightforward one: Does the federal government, under the Commerce Clause, have the power to force Americans to purchase health insurance?
Article I, Section 8, Clause 3
(Congress shall have Power) To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;
The foundation for the administration’s argument that it does indeed have that power lay in a case handed down by the Supreme Court in 1942, Wickard v. Filburn. That case gave the stamp of approval to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, which allowed the federal government to regulate economic activity:
In 1940 an Ohio farmer, Roscoe Filburn grew more wheat than the government allotment allowed. They fined him. He sued, stating that his wheat was for his own use on his farm and therefore was beyond Congressional reach. In a legal gerrymander that would put any politician to shame, the Court decided that as Filburn’s exceeding his quotas would result in him buying less wheat in the local markets, which in turn led to less wheat traded in those markets, he was impacting interstate commerce; therefore Congress did indeed have the power to limit his production.
Twisting Fillburn’s already tortured logic, the Obama administration has decided that now it can force all Americans to purchase healthcare. The why is that society has to pick up the tab when uninsured people go to the emergency room. The how is where Filburn comes in. By virtue of the fact that the money people spend on healthcare for the uninsured (through higher taxes and higher insurance premiums) cannot be spent to purchase goods and services they might otherwise purchase, healthcare therefore impacts interstate commerce. As such, Congress has the power to regulate healthcare and can compel people to purchase health insurance.
That is the logic the Democrats used as they force fed Obamacare down the throats of the American people.
If this logic is acceptable, the question becomes, is there literally anything the government cannot do? For example, perhaps a future Congress might want to ban premarital sex? What? No way! Really? How? Here’s how: The United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year capturing, trying and keeping criminals locked up. Seventy percent of prisoners come from households without fathers. Given that the single biggest contributor of kids growing up without a father is out of wedlock births, the most straightforward way to ameliorate that problem is simply banning premarital sex. As the progeny of premarital sex drive expenses in the criminal justice system, which in turn reduces the amount that can be spent on airline tickets or pencils or hotel rooms, or bingo games, Congress can legislate it.
The outcome of the administration’s logic suggests that there is nothing in our $14 trillion economy that could not be said to impact interstate commerce. Nothing. Growing tomatoes in your back yard rather than buying them in the supermarket; staying at home instead of going out to the movies; sewing the hole in a child’s pants rather than buying a new pair; sending your kid to a private or religious school rather than the dysfunctional public school down the street. If this expansion of the absurd logic of Filburn is allowed to stand, there will be literally nothing the government cannot make you do or keep you from doing. At that point there will be no freedom left in America. First to go will be what’s left of economic freedom, followed shortly thereafter by political and then religious freedoms. Once those are gone, how much is really left of America at all?
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Actually, I don’t think they’ll ban premarital sex. Unwed pregnancies lead to more dependency on the grabbermint – exactly what they want.
Another “actually, I don’t think they’ll ban premarital sex.” Since Roe v. Wade, the abortion – gummint complex has murdered 38 million (+) babies. Now without abortion, how would those thousands of eugenicists get paid and how would the incinerator operators get paid for not cremating the mountains of remains. My goodness, the unemployment rate would go up up at least a %.
The problem is you saying it is “…known as Obamacare.” The GOP got their way in allowing the insurance companies to still make billions off our health…or better yest, our lack of it. It should be called GOPcare
“…To their credit, when they could have easily kicked the can down the road and waited until after the election to take the case, they did not.”
Are you kidding me? This GOP laden Supreme Courst are doing this BEFORE the election for political purposes.
Thomas Jefferson was involved in the nation’s first political fight where the limit’s of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers were tested. Using terms like “does not extend” and “exclusively,” Jefferson had clarified the Founder’s intentions for the Commerce Clause, that Congress has no business sticking its big nose into intrastate commerce.
In fact, where the idea of federal healthcare is concerned, while discussing the Founder’s division of federal and state government powers, Jefferson had noted that the Founder’s had trusted the states, not Congress and the Oval Office, with the care of the people.
But more importantly concerning the constitutionality of Obamacare, the USSC has already established the case precedent that Congress has no business interfering with intrastate medical practice.
Sadly the reason that the USSC wrongly decided to allow Congress to overstep its Commerce Clause limits in Wickard v. Filburn is this. Socialist FDR had initially tried to stack the Supreme Court so that the Court would give the green light to legislation inspired by FDR, legislation which established his constitutionally indefensible social spending programs. But Congress disagreed with FDR’s plan to stack the Court, so FDR didn’t get his way.
However, FDR was in office long enough that he was able to establish an activist justice majority who saw things his way. And when the USSC decided Wickard v. Filburn, FDR’s puppet justices wrongly ignored both Jefferson’s clarification of the limits of Congress’s powers with respect to the Commerce Clause, and also previous case precedent which had clarified that Congress has no business interfering with intrastate medical practice.
The bottom line concerning the constitutionality of Obamacare is this. The corrupt Court is wrongly allowing Congress to use the “Necessary and Proper” clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 18) as an excuse to ignore it’s Article V requirement to petition the states for specific new powers via constitutional amendments. And Congress had been getting away with this because citizens are no longer being taught about Congress’s constitutionally limited powers.
What a mess! :^(
Firstly, premarital sex cannot be banned or regulated due to the right to privacy, established in Griswold v. Connecticut based on the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment. Secondly, although I believe the health care mandate is probably unconstitutional, a case can be made that it directly regulates (compels) a form of commerce (i.e. buying health insurance). Premarital sex is not a form of commerce and has no impact on commerce in and of itself.