Should the Supreme Court Overturn Obama's Healthcare Law? >
The Individual Mandate Is Unconstitutional and Corrupt
Never before in history has the Congress attempted to force every American to purchase a product of their choosing
March 26, 2012
About Phil Kerpen:
Phil Kerpen is president of American Commitment and author of the 2011 book Democracy Denied.
The U.S. Constitution is a document of specific, enumerated, and therefore limited powers. The Rehnquist court recognized that there must be limits to what can be considered regulation of interstate commerce if the Constitution is to have any meaningful limit on federal power. If the Roberts court decides to uphold the despised individual mandate in Obamacare, the Commerce Clause would be transformed into a de facto plenary power, obliterating enumerated powers and allowing the federal government to do nearly anything. This is despite the clear structure of the document and the inclusion of the Ninth and 10th Amendments.
Never before in history has the Congress attempted to force every American to purchase a product of their choosing. In this case, it was because they cut a corrupt deal with the insurance companies in which the companies agreed to submit to onerous, expensive regulations in exchange for the government forcing everyone to buy their product--with hundreds of billions of tax dollars in subsidies thrown their way to sweeten the deal.
[See a collection of political cartoons on healthcare.]
If that's allowed to stand, nearly every industry with lobbying prowess will angle for a law forcing people to buy their products. The prospect of such a thing would be unrecognizable to the founders who wrote our Constitution.
Moreover, the court must strike down not just the mandate but the entire monstrous law that the corrupt mandate held together and allowed to pass over the objections of the American people. To strike down just the mandate would cripple private insurance and accelerate us down on a path to a complete Washington takeover of our healthcare.
If the Supreme Court fails to strike down the law in its entirety, then it will fall to Congress and the president to correct the court's error and restore constitutionally limited government--a fact voters should not overlook.
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- Other Arguments
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#215395
Yes — Congress has no power to mandate commerce into existence
HANS A. VON SPAKOVSKY, Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation
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#313997
Yes — Congress exercised unprecedented and unbounded power in passing Obamacare
TREVOR BURRUS, Legal Associate at the Cato Institute
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#4205166
No — Supreme Court must uphold the law and not bow to political pressures
ETHAN ROME, Executive Director of Health Care for America Now
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#5123112
Yes — Obamacare and Romneycare are a threat to freedom
RICK SANTORUM, Republican Candidate for President of the United States
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#697137
No — Both the Constitution and the Supreme Court's precedent support upholding the Affordable Care Act
IAN MILLHISER, Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress
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#788131
No — It would be unconscionable for the Supreme Court to take healthcare gains away from the American people
RON POLLACK, Founding Executive Director of Families USA
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#8105153
No — The Constitution gives the federal government the power to enact national solutions to national problems
ELIZABETH B. WYDRA, Chief Counsel for the Constitutional Accountability Center
