White House Says No ‘Veracity’ to Argument That Forcing Individuals to Buy Health Insurance Is Unconstitutional

it's usually over "LACK OF STANDING" ---- Why do we have "LACK OF STANDING" most likely it is because SLAVES normally don't get "STANDINGS" do they?

I both agree and disagree...the government should not have the authority to do whatever it wants. If the powers of Congress are to be limited by the Constitution, such limits should be determined by the most conservative interpretation.

However, the Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8) is overly succinct and notoriously fuzzy, being only 16 words long: Congress shall have power to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." Over the years, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Commerce Clause in wildly divergent ways. In some cases, the Court has given Congress almost unlimited power to regulate all interstate commerce--to the exclusion of the states--but, in other cases, the federal and state governments are seen as having mutually exclusive, separate rights to regulate commercial activity. And this isn’t even a complete representation of the interpretations that the Supreme Court has offered. Here's a link to a good article on this:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/stat...

The proposal to mandate all Americans to purchase health insurance can similarly be defended or undermined using the Commerce Clause. Particularly at question would be persons who decide either not to purchase health insurance or who pay for health services out of pocket.

A case justifying the requirement might be Wickard v. Filburn (1942). Unbelievably, the Court held that a farmer who grew wheat on his own property--for his own exclusive use--was a threat to interstate commerce and therefore violated federal agricultural regulations. If other farmers did the same thing, the Court reasoned, they would not need purchase wheat on the open market, which would have an impact on interstate economies and commerce. It is not much of a logical leap to think that large numbers of people who choose not to buy health insurance would have a similar impact.

Andrew Napolitano, in an editorial for the Wall Street Journal, cites a Supreme Court case that would invalidate Obama's proposal for an individual mandate to buy health insurance. In U.S. v. Lopez (1995), a public school student was charged with violating a federal law, the Gun Free School Zones Act of 1990. The student appealed the conviction, saying that this law was unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause--and the conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The Supreme Court upheld this decision, saying that the statute was “a criminal statute that by its terms has nothing to do with “commerce” or any sort of economic enterprise, however broadly one might define those terms" (U.S. v Lopez). As Napolitano points out, the primary work of physicians and other health care professionals is to heal the sick, and is not at its heart a commercial activity--so it may be argued that federal regulation of health insurance and healthcare is unconstitutional.

There may be yet other constitutional issues with the individual mandate proposal. The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies points out that some people may not choose to buy insurance for religious reasons. Requiring them to do so would be violate their free exercise of religion under the First Amendment. It is even more troubling to consider that this proposal may represent the unconstitutional "taking" of property; under the Fifth Amendment, persons cannot be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

Although I have not found this explicitly stated, this kind of requirement shows a disregard for state sovereignty, something which is supposed to be protected under the Tenth Amendment. I believe this is what Rehnquist, quoting an earlier Supreme Court case in U.S. v. Lopez, was trying to say when he alluded to Wickard v. Filburn and similar cases. He voices concern that Congress could have too much power in the regulation of commerce between the states; its power “may not be extended so as to embrace effects upon interstate commerce so indirect and remote that to embrace them…would effectually obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local and create a completely centralized government” (U.S. v. Lopez). This scenario is downright chilling.

Of course, if our representatives and senators were required to show constitutional justification for all the bills they wrote, we might not have this disaster to contend with…

Napolitano’s editorial:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020391730457441...

United States v. Lopez:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-1260.ZO.html

Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, “Constitutional Implications of an “Individual Mandate” in Health Care Reform:
http://www.fed-soc.org/doclib/20090710_Individual_Mandates.pdf

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson