Insurance Mandate

The Affordable Care Act (a misnomer if I ever heard one) is still being tested in the court of law. Personally, I believe everyone needs to pay into the system in some way to make health care work but I read this great article in the Boston Globe that really explains how problematic and unconstitutional this bill may be. It was written by Randy E. Barnett, a professor of constitutional law at the Georgetown University Law Center. Remember, the Boston Globe is a liberally slanted paper. Here is a sample but I recommend you read the whole thing.

The government argues that health care is somehow different than other types of goods and services. Because everyone will one day need health care and may not be able to afford it, and because emergency rooms are obligated by law to provide care regardless of ability to pay, then it is said to be “necessary’’ to require that all persons purchase health insurance today to avoid shifting costs to others.

But even assuming this claim is accurate, it does not provide a constitutional limitation on a power to impose economic mandates. If the Supreme Court upholds the power to impose this insurance mandate on the people, it will not evaluate the next use of economic mandates to see if that circumstance is similar to or different from health care. Once the power to conscript Americans to enter into contractual relations with private companies is accepted here, it will be accepted any time Congress deems economic mandates to be convenient to its regulation of the national economy.