Can Obama force you to buy health insurance? [Archive]

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Hotspring 44

09-15-2009, 06:20 PM

Hotspring 44

09-15-2009, 06:50 PM

Link: Can Obama force you to buy health insurance?<o:p></o:p> (https://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/ygregory;_ylt=AhizCrExGLONz1qJRdx729uMwfIE;_ylu=X3oDMTE2OTJoNTFoBHBvcwMxBHNlYwN5bi1yLWItbGVmdARzbGsDLWNhbm9iYW1hZm9)

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<table class="MsoTableGrid" style="border: medium none ; border-collapse: collapse;" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr style="height: 29pt;"> <td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 6.15in; height: 29pt;" valign="top" width="590"> Opinion Christian Science Monitor<o:p></o:p>

<cite>By Anthony Gregory </cite>[I]Anthony Gregory<cite> </cite>– <abbr title="2009-09-14T02:00:00-0700" class="timedate">Mon Sep 14, 5:00 am ET<o:p></o:p></abbr>
</td> </tr> </tbody></table> Oakland, Calif. – Many liberals lambasted the Bush administration on detention policy and warrantless surveillance, often arguing that they violated the Constitution. Now the Obama administration is pushing ahead with plans to require every American to purchase health insurance. <o:p></o:p>
Doesn't that also violate the Constitution? <o:p></o:p>
The Constitution created a federal government limited to its enumerated powers. Everything Congress is allowed to do is spelled out in Article I. The 10th Amendment makes it explicit: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." <o:p></o:p>
Nothing in the Constitution authorizes any federal involvement in healthcare – yet Congress may soon require everyone in America to buy insurance. <o:p></o:p>
Admittedly, the Supreme Court has ruled that the language empowering Congress to "regulate Commerce ... among the several States" applies to an ever-broadening range of activity. The "commerce" clause was originally intended to prohibit interstate tariffs, a supposed problem under the Articles of Confederation. <o:p></o:p>
Ironically, consumers today cannot freely buy health insurance from across state lines. If there's any legitimate application of the "commerce" clause, it would be to overturn such restrictions. But the framers never gave Congress the general power to regulate industry. <o:p></o:p>
In the 1935 case Schecter v. United States, involving farming regulations, the court unanimously struck down parts of the National Industrial Recovery Act for overstepping Congress's commerce power. Liberal Justice Louis Brandeis informed one of President Franklin Roosevelt's aides to "tell the president that we're not going to let this government centralize everything." <o:p></o:p>
The next year, the court ruled in Butler v. United States that elements of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which inflated food prices by restricting supply, violated the 10th Amendment. <o:p></o:p>
After FDR threatened to pack the court with additional judges friendly to the New Deal, the court lost its spine. In 1937, it upheld the National Labor Relations Act – which greatly expanded the power of labor unions and greatly diminished the freedom of contract – under the "commerce" clause. <o:p></o:p>
In Wickard v. Filburn (1942) the justices even upheld the conviction of a man for growing too much wheat on his farm. The court reasoned that even wheat grown solely for private consumption ultimately had an impact on the economy, turning the "commerce" clause into a regulatory rubber stamp. <o:p></o:p>
The "commerce" clause is now interpreted very broadly. Although in United States v. Lopez (1995) the court struck down a firearms law that exceeded Congress's commerce power, it ruled 10 years later in Gonzales v. Raich that federal drug policy overrode California's medical marijuana laws, despite the 10th Amendment. <o:p></o:p>
Justice Clarence Thomas dissented: "If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption (not because it is interstate commerce, but because it is inextricably bound up with interstate commerce), then Congress' Article I powers … have no meaningful limits." Indeed, practically nothing is beyond the pale anymore.<o:p></o:p>
Then there is the privacy issue. In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), Roe v. Wade (1973), and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) the court found reproductive freedom to be guaranteed as an implicit right to privacy. In Casey, the court reasoned that abortion entailed "the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy," and that such choices are "central to the liberty protected by the 14th Amendment." <o:p></o:p>
Why wouldn't this apply to the right to decide whether to buy health insurance? <o:p></o:p>
Other constitutional concerns emerge. The mass collection of medical data likely to occur under proposed reforms threatens the Fourth Amendment's "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects." Making it a crime not to buy insurance, and then forcing people to show they have not bought it, arguably clashes with the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination. <o:p></o:p>
The Ninth Amendment reserves to individuals all rights not expressly denied by the Constitution. Nothing in the document curtails our right not to purchase health insurance. And being forced to fill out forms to apply for insurance is in tension with the 13th Amendment's prohibition of "involuntary servitude." <o:p></o:p>
The quality we could expect from government care may also raise constitutional questions. In early August, a federal panel ordered California to release 40,000 inmates because the health services were so strained, causing one unnecessary prisoner death per week, so as to render the treatment "unconstitutional." If we all become captive consumers under federal mandate, could we not similarly argue that any shoddiness in our mandated health services is an unconstitutional burden? <o:p></o:p>
Those who find such constitutional arguments unconvincing are often quick to invoke them against policies they oppose. Similarly, some of today's critics of President Obama and national healthcare brandish the Constitution as a holy document, but were silent when President George W.Bush trampled its many limitations on executive power, and even signed an expansion of Medicare. <o:p></o:p>
A newfound, consistent, and lasting respect for the Constitution, across the ideological spectrum, would renew the health of our republic like nothing else. <o:p></o:p>
Anthony Gregory is a research analyst at the Independent Institute and the author of a forthcoming book on habeas corpus.<o:p></o:p>
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Clancy

09-15-2009, 07:01 PM

The frenzy over healthcare reform is laughable. According to WHO (World Health Organization), the US is now ranked 37th in the world in terms of quality of healthcare, and we're number one in terms of COST of healthcare.

Even Cuba's infant mortality rate is better than ours.

Hotspring 44

09-16-2009, 11:23 AM

Clancy

09-16-2009, 11:53 AM

Um... you are forced to pay for social security, police and fire protection, road construction, clean water, military protection, FDA protection, CDC protection and on and on and on.

Most of the above involve massive amounts of 'for-profit' expenses.

It's ridiculous to have a cow over fixing our absurdly dysfunctional and hyper expensive healthcare system.

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Laughable? Laughing like a lunatic maybe, but it's not so funny in reality.
The thought of being forced into paying a for-profit health care provider of any kind is a form of indentured servitude, plain and simple.
It's not like automobile insurance, whereas you have a choice to not have an automobile and still have ways to get around. It’s being charged money (by federally mandated law) to have somebody else make a profit off of you simply because you exist. Far different from automobile insurance.
If we are going to be forced to pay, it should belong to us, the people; not some private executives that are going to skim as much as they can off of it and leaves us with healthcare rationing anyway.

In Cuba, they get much better exercise, more vitamin D from direct sunlight and their diet is much healthier than us Americans.

Hotspring 44.
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Dram

09-16-2009, 01:16 PM

Increment by increment like a minute on the clock you don't hardly see it move but all of a sudden its a minute later and time has changed, its all so reasonable the encroachment of the constitution and you don't rise indignantly to challenge the FDA or MDA as they lock out the option of citizens doing the things the government so squanderously employs and so rather than more citizen healers rising into the void they are locked out and threatened by prison to bow down to the overpriced and in-effective remedies of the day

Remember Nan? How much good did she do before a mistake, I bet her percentages were far more favorable than what hospitals now can claim, such as possibly picking up a MRSA or being charged a $100 for a bed pan.

Um... you are forced to pay for social security, police and fire protection, road construction, clean water, military protection, FDA protection, CDC protection and on and on and on.

Most of the above involve massive amounts of 'for-profit' expenses.

It's ridiculous to have a cow over fixing our absurdly dysfunctional and hyper expensive healthcare system.

Clancy

09-16-2009, 01:39 PM

I repeat, the US healthcare system is rated as 37th in the world, AND the most expensive in the world. I think it's time we adopted the system that works far better in most western countries, and let the insurance industry go, they've done enough damage.

Increment by increment like a minute on the clock you don't hardly see it move but all of a sudden its a minute later and time has changed, its all so reasonable the encroachment of the constitution and you don't rise indignantly to challenge the FDA or MDA as they lock out the option of citizens doing the things the government so squanderously employs and so rather than more citizen healers rising into the void they are locked out and threatened by prison to bow down to the overpriced and in-effective remedies of the day

Remember Nan? How much good did she do before a mistake, I bet her percentages were far more favorable than what hospitals now can claim, such as possibly picking up a MRSA or being charged a $100 for a bed pan.

Dram

09-16-2009, 02:01 PM

Is something approaching? I've heard there are already people having "Tea Parties". I just wonder the difference in emotional climate between when our first moves to independence as an infant nation to what is now coming at us. or has been so insidiously creeping into place.

Its almost a Karma of sorts. People getting the kind of government they deserve. "Why do for myself what you can do for me" This has become more the National Anthem for today.

I repeat, the US healthcare system is rated as 37th in the world, AND the most expensive in the world. I think it's time we adopted the system that works far better in most western countries, and fuck the insurance industry.

Hotspring 44

09-16-2009, 02:08 PM

Clancy

09-16-2009, 02:14 PM

The idea of pizza eating, MTV watching RW whackos taking up arms against the biggest military in the world because Faux News has stirred them into a frenzy over healthcare reform is comical. Bush lying us to war and killing a million Iraqis didn't faze them, but universal healthcare is a threat to our liberty?

Is something approaching? I've heard there are already people having "Tea Parties". I just wonder the difference in emotional climate between when our first moves to independence as an infant nation to what is now coming at us. or has been so insidiously creeping into place.

Its almost a Karma of sorts. People getting the kind of government they deserve. "Why do for myself what you can do for me" This has become more the National Anthem for today.

Hotspring 44

09-16-2009, 02:42 PM

LOL, the idea of pizza eating, MTV watching RW whackos taking up arms against the biggest military in the world because Faux News has stirred them into a frenzy over healthcare reform is comical. Bush lying us to war and killing a million Iraqis didn't faze them, but universal healthcare is a threat to our liberty? Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaaa!!
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CSH%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><style>  </style> If that was all there is to it I would be on the floor laughing.
The sad fact is that because of “corporate personhood” certain entities have enough money to drown out the voices of the many for the sake of the voices of the few to manipulate everything. That's why we the people, somehow, need to get rid of corporate personhood.
Unfortunately, it is hard for protesters with megaphones to be heard over all of the corporate media.
Rupert Murdoch is not even an American citizen! Unfortunately that is how powerful even foreign corporate entities are, but I don't hear those “pizza eating MTV watching RW whackos" complaining about that!
Isn't it interesting that no matter whom it is when they say what someone wants to hear that someone will go with it?

Dram

09-16-2009, 04:32 PM

Your arrogance is unbecoming to you,Its setting you up to be laughed at in assuming to speak as an authority on any public. What? your the lone crusader? no one measures up to your measure of indignation, what great works have you to preen about? As I recall it Britain was once the greatest military in the world.

LOL, the idea of pizza eating, MTV watching RW whackos taking up arms against the biggest military in the world because Faux News has stirred them into a frenzy over healthcare reform is comical. Bush lying us to war and killing a million Iraqis didn't faze them, but universal healthcare is a threat to our liberty? Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaaa!!

Clancy

09-16-2009, 05:03 PM

I don't quite understand your ramblings, but believe me, if RW whackos attempt a violent revolution over the prospect of paying a lot less for medical coverage, I'll be laughing even harder.

Your arrogance is unbecoming to you,Its setting you up to be laughed at in assuming to speak as an authority on any public. What? your the lone crusader? no one measures up to your measure of indignation, what great works have you to preen about? As I recall it Britain was once the greatest military in the world.

Dram

09-16-2009, 09:33 PM

who's pay roll are you on?

I don't quite understand your ramblings, but believe me, if RW whackos attempt a violent revolution over the prospect of paying a lot less for medical coverage, I'll be laughing even harder.

Dram

09-16-2009, 09:47 PM

The we you speak of is less than what you are capable of watching. Remember, We the People, or is that something you laugh at as well? You rely on the Federal Government for your moneys to live and can not see over the lip of the pocket you live in...

phloem

09-16-2009, 09:47 PM

This response is misinformed, juvenile, and patronizing. Think before you write.

Not all of us are "forced" to do any of what you claim: I don't pay for any of the items you've noted, because I've made conscious choices to adjust my work and income sources to have more control over my "outputs" to government. Yes, I still pay for others to "profit," but increasingly I'm simplifying my income and expenditures to put my money back into the local community. I also acknowledge that not everyone finds themselves in circumstances where making such choices are so relatively easy. Nevertheless, we all make choices about who to work for, and how we pay, or don't pay, taxes. Too bad more people don't withhold all they can and put their tax bills into a peace tax fund - if we all did so, the government couldn't possibly keep up with the movement.

Your biggest mistake in your post is your maliciously misleading and insulting insinuation that forcing people to pay for health insurance will "fix" the dysfunctional health care system. It won't. If people can't afford health insurance, they won't pay. If people refuse to be roped into the lies and deceit of Obama and Congress and their corporate masters, then government will have no way enforce such an totalitarian policy. Shills for a quick fix to a completely disastrous situation, including just about everyone in Congress, and apparently, you, need to stop misleading and lying and start supporting single-payer, universal health care - it's the only practical and equitable answer to the profiteering HMOs and insurance companies.

Um... you are forced to pay for social security, police and fire protection, road construction, clean water, military protection, FDA protection, CDC protection and on and on and on.

Most of the above involve massive amounts of 'for-profit' expenses.

It's ridiculous to have a cow over fixing our absurdly dysfunctional and hyper expensive healthcare system.