Health Care: Obamacare Is Set to Mug the Country
Source: Courtesy of the Richmond Times Dispatch
Written by Robert G. Marshall
MANASSAS – When a comedy mugger told skinflint actor Jack Benny, “Your money or your life,” in a 1948 radio program, he was met with silence. He repeated the threat, “Look bud, I said your money or your life.” Benny responded, “I’m thinking about it.”
Americans will soon be “thinking about” a similar mugging from Obamacare proponents who want to compel all individuals to purchase health insurance costing up to $15,000 a year from private companies, or pay a “shared responsibility payment” fine up to $1,900 per year. Don’t pay the fine? Then face a year in jail and a $25,000 penalty.
President Obama also wants to reduce air pollution. If we can be forced to buy health insurance, we can be forced to buy a certain car to reduce emissions, or even a new GM (Government Motors) vehicle.
Congress could likewise mandate that citizens deposit their savings in congressionally favored banks (whose executives make the correct political donations) or buy new home storm windows, insurance, or dishwashers, while Congress pretends it is not raising taxes!
To protect Virginians, I drew up HB 10 based on our natural rights of liberty and the contract power guaranteed by the Constitution. It provides: “No law shall interfere with the right of a person or entity to pay for lawful medical services to preserve life or health, nor shall any law impose a penalty, tax, fee, or fine, of any type, to decline or to contract for health care coverage . . . “
In 1994, the Congressional Budget Office addressed Hillarycare: “The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States . . . . That decision could lead policymakers . . . to use mandates to control the allocation of a large portion of the nation’s resources without the cost of those actions being controlled through the federal budget process.”
This year, the Congressional Research Service said, ” . . . it is a novel issue whether Congress may use this [Commerce] clause to require an individual to purchase a good or a service.”
The Supreme Court has held that Congress can regulate the channels of interstate commerce such as railroads, highways, planes, and boats. It can protect the instruments of commerce. And Congress can even regulate local economic activity if it substantially affects interstate commerce.
This power banned a farmer from growing wheat for private use on his own farm (Wickard v. Filburn, 1942) and barred the growing of marijuana for personal use in states allowing “medical marijuana” (Gonzales v. Reich, 2005).
But to uphold Obama’s health insurance mandate, the Supreme Court would have to find that the absence of economic activity (not purchasing insurance) was itself a form of economic activity having a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Webster’s says economics is “the production, distribution and consumption of commodities.” Failure to purchase insurance does none of this.
Congress relied on the Commerce Clause for two laws which the court struck down: the “Gun Free School Zones Act” (U.S. v. Lopez, 1995) which banned the activity of possessing a gun within 1,000 feet of a school, and part of the “Violence Against Women Act” (U.S. v. Morrison, 2000) which regulated gender-based violence. The court held the prohibited acts were non-economic activities beyond the power of Congress to regulate, despite effects on interstate commerce.
Obamacare also ignores the constitutional right and power to enter into contracts. By threatening Americans with a fine equal to half the median income, as well as a year in jail, for not purchasing individual health insurance, Obamacare abolishes the very premise of contract law, namely, its voluntary nature which underpins America’s entire business culture.
But how is Obamacare different from mandatory auto insurance required by 47 states, including Virginia? Mandatory auto insurance is a condition of exercising a privilege, not a right, to drive on public roads. Driving a car without seatbelts or insurance at excessive speed on your own property is legal; driving on a road funded with tax money requires sobriety, a certain age, and vision ability. Further, liability insurance protects others from injury, not oneself.
What about the mandated military draft? There is expressed constitutional authority for raising armies. There is no enumerated power to mandate the purchase of private insurance, or anything else.
President Obama and Congress do not have public support for a tax-paid, government-run system. Instead, the “tax” is paid directly by individuals and businesses through mandates to purchase insurance under heavy penalty.
The fact that in 220 years Congress has never exercised such a power is strong evidence no such power exists — nor should it.
Abolishing the compact nature of our form of government between citizens and their elected representatives by seeking to exercise powers beyond the U.S. Constitution turns citizens into serfs. Is this the kind of change Americans voted for in 2008?
Bob Marshall represents the 13th District in the Virginia House of Delegates. Contact him at DelBMarshall@house.virginia.gov
