October 26, 2010

Liberals in denial, continued again

The most common argument against the mandate is that in giving Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, the founders didn't create the authority for the federal government to regulate inaction. In other words, they say citizens can't be compelled to participate in interstate commerce, such as buying health insurance. Most legal scholars disagree with this interpretation ...TPM
Sounds suspiciously like wishful thinking* to me.

* Perhaps even magical thinking.

Incidentally, here is Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett's very recent paper (h/t David Ziemer) on the individual mandate, Commandeering the People: Why the Individual Health Insurance Mandate is Unconstitutional. It's comprehensive, fairly devastating, and has already been cited approvingly by the district court in Florida by way of rejecting the federal government's taxing power argument.

Read it and weep, I'm afraid.

4 comments:

Free Lunch said...

So we should have just gone with Medicare for All and not worried about giving the insurance industry its very expensive piece of the pie.

illusory tenant said...

Pretty much.

illusory tenant said...

Although we could always impeach Clarence Thomas ...

Anonymous said...

Well, I imagine some legal scholar will offer a cogent rebuttal to the arguments presented. The question will be whether or not the refutations are able to poke sufficient holes into those positions which were posited.

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