The Bell Tolls for Obamacare
By PETER FERRARA on 11.23.11 @ 6:08AM
The American Spectator
The key to the Supreme Court's upcoming ruling will be clear recognition of constitutional alternatives to Obamacare.
"I am predicting that the Supreme Court will strike down the entire Obamacare law on a 5-4 ruling. That starts with the individual mandate, which the Court will find unconstitutional because it has reiterated several times in recent cases that it will enforce some limit on the Commerce Clause as justification for federal regulation, reserving the role of police power to regulate for the general public good to the states. Virtually all the judges in all the lower court cases concluded that there was no precedent anywhere in U.S. history upholding a law requiring citizens to purchase a good or service. Not participating in interstate commerce by choosing not to buy a product or service leaves no basis for regulation to compel such participation under the Commerce Clause power to regulate interstate commerce. ...
"I believe the key to winning the fifth majority vote of Justice Kennedy is the argument that striking down Obamacare does not mean there is no constitutional way for a health care safety net to assure no one will suffer from lack of necessary medical care. ...
"A complete health care safety net assuring essential health care for all can be achieved with no individual mandate and no employer mandate, for just a fraction of the cost of Obamacare, actually sharply reducing government in the process. That starts with the provision already in federal law, stemming from the Kennedy-Kassebaum legislation of the 1990s, providing for guaranteed renewability. ... Consequently, striking down Obamacare as unconstitutional does not mean condemning the needy to suffering without essential health care. ...
"In regard to Medicaid, Obamacare treats the states as sub-departments of the federal government, like local government units in France, rather than as the sovereign governments they are under traditional American federalism. ..."
No comments:
Post a Comment