Health Care bill unconstitutional, SCOTUS challenge inevitable

Companies will drop health care pure and simple. Retirees will be pushed off on the Medicare system. Many companies will likely run the numbers and find it is less expensive to pay the per employee fine to the government than to continue offering health insurance as a benefit. This result is fine for the statists as it represents a new stream of cash going directly to the government. Obama and his pals will then run around the country complaining about evil companies dumping their ill employees and families on the streets. The effect will be to build support for single payer. If the Supreme Court doesn’t strike this down, or the Republican’s can’t repeal it, we will have single payer within five years. The dominoes are in place.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2481709/posts

While the left is still cheering on the passage of its Holy Grail legislation (“Nationalized Health Care”), jubliation is still rampant in the socialst leaning streets of Portland Oregon. But reality is beginning to set in.

In just the last few days, companies who must disclose their obligations when any of their revenue expectations shift beyond a certain threshold, have begun to do so. Because of Nationalized Health Care, large companies including ATT, John Deere &Co., Caterpillar, AK Steel, 3M, and Valero Energy have all by law begun releasing their revised corporate outlooks because they have been dramatically changed with the passage of the bill. ATT’s outlook is down by 1 Billion dollars. John Deere & Co by 150 Million, Caterpillar 100 Million, AK Steel 31 Million, 3M 90 Million, Valero, by 20 Million. Numbers like these mean a large number of people are going to lose their jobs, guaranteed.

Andy McCarthy of National Review online reports these companies are caught between the law and new hearings demanded by democrats in congress like a rock and a hard place. Democrats want to know why companies are releasing such obviously damaging information to the public! It clearly makes the case that Nationalized Health Care is going to cost business in America billions of dollars, and that is going to be felt first by the people who get fired from these companies. Of course it will be felt economy wide eventually.

ATT and the others are not making a political statement here; they are following federal regulations which demand these real numbers. It isn’t as if they can fudge them to make democrats happy. The law states they have to disclose the information or face prosecution.

So there is the first fallout of Nationalized Health Care. Jobs. Oops… and the bill hasn’t even gone into effect yet, if indeed it ever does.

This is disturbing to say the least, yet even more sobering is the realization that demanding and enforcing the American people buy insurance with the passage of Nationalized Health Care - the Individual Mandate, congress has just handed itself a blank check as to what it can do.

A point that most people have failed to recognize with this unconstitutional bill is this: Congress, with the commerce clause, is attempting to regulate INACTIVITY.

Exactly which one of the Enumerated powers of Congress is this one? (hint: it isn’t on the list)

This is unprecedented in American History. Never has congress had the ability to regulate INACTIVITY (You are going to be forced to enter the health insurance market, or you will be punished by the government, by way of the IRS). If this is allowed to stand, then Congress will have the legal ability to tell individuals and every entity inside the borders of the United States, what to do and when to do it, or face Federal punishment. This would give the federal government, specifically the congress, UNLIMITED POWER.

Barnett et. al. of the Heritage Foundation patiently explain the Commerce Clause which was designed to accomplish several tasks, the first of which is to divide into classes the differing forms of commerce. Congress can regulate channels of interstate or foreign commerce - think things like highways, cargo shipping lanes, Aircraft shipping lanes things of that nature. The second power that congress has is to protect persons and or things involved in commerce, the ships themselves, Aircraft etc, and prevent them from being misused. Third and last, congress has the power to “regulate economic activities that “substantially affect interstate commerce.””

The Senate bill which so recently passed and was signed into law attempts to use this third section of the commerce clause to achieve its end. Fortunately (Or unfortunately depending on which side of the issue you are on) the senate cannot legally do so. The Senate asserts with it's legislation:

“[t]he individual responsibility requirement… is commercial and economic in nature, and substantially affects interstate commerce…. The requirement regulates activity that is commercial and economic in nature: economic and financial decisions about how and when health care is paid for, and when health insurance is purchased.”

This assertion should bring to mind a vastly important question:

What is congress attempting to regulate?

Congress is saying to America, all of you have to buy insurance. Some analogize it to buying insurance on your car. Americans are not forced to drive, get a license or buy a car. It is therefore a personal choice. A person can have a driver’s license, never drive, and therefore never have to buy car insurance. It’s a deliberative choice made by each person. This is not even slightly similar to the government telling you to go buy health insurance or it will tax and penalize you. Americans are required to buy car insurance because of owning and driving a car, health insurance will be required because you live. That isn’t a choice unless you want to get into a debate on abortion, but I digress…

Wait a minute…. What class of economic activity is the absence of activity? Those people who do not have insurance are not in the market, they aren’t participating.

To quote Barnett et. al.:

"[W]hat class of activity is Congress seeking to regulate?" Only when this question is answered can the Court assess whether that class of activity substantially affects interstate commerce. Significantly, the mandate imposed by the pending bills does not regulate or prohibit the economic activity of providing or administering health insurance. Nor does it regulate or prohibit the economic activity of providing health care, whether by doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, or other entities engaged in the business of providing a medical good or service. Indeed, the health care mandate does not purport to regulate or prohibit activity of any kind, whether economic or noneconomic. To the contrary, it purports to "regulate" inactivity. “

“Regulate inactivity”… Never in the history of the United States has the congress ever tried to reach so far past its constitutional boundaries. To regulate “inactivity” in anything means the congress could tell all of us to go buy anything it wanted to. Imagine being told that you must now buy 2000$ a year of carbon credits, and if you do not, then the IRS is coming for you. Imagine being told you must now buy insurance for all of your pets. Or how about the requirement that one of your cars must be a GM? It's all on the table now and more. You must buy what the government says or face penalties such as tax liens, confiscation of tax refunds, and all the other tools available to the IRS in seizing assets.

There is a vast difference between the people telling government what to do for them, and government telling the people to do what it tells them to do.

In America, the people told the government what to do and when, until congress decided to attempt this usurpation. It is a paradigm shift that will either destroy this country, or the unconstitutional legislation will be killed by the Supreme Court. Legal challenges already filed by several states will ensure the bill is reviewed by the high court. Allowing this precident to stand, will lead to further usurpations of our rights, bet on it.

In order for the Supreme Court of the United States to validate this bill as being legal and constitutional, it will have to overturn legal precedents set a number of times over our 250+ year history. The Commerce Clause cannot be used to force a purchase (Health Insurance) under penalty of law, it has never been done. Congress has the power to regulate commerce, not the lack thereof. SCOTUS will have to ignore the letter as well as the spirit of the law in order to validate the actions of congress in nationalizing Health Care with the individual mandate. Without the individual mandate, the entire bill is 100% worthless, it is unfundable.

This blatant usurpation of power by congress from the states is unprecedented in the history of the United States. It is staggering to recognize that with this bill, Congress will have effectively removed the 10th Amendment. Instead of a unified nation we now have the federal government, by force, taking power from the states. The sovereignty of the states will cease to exist. The conclusion is inescapable; the Federal Government has attacked the States. Is the nation at war with itself?

Yes, those limiting 18 Enumerated Powers listed in the Constitution matter, they were designed deliberately to prevent exactly what congress has done here. Congress does not have, and never has had, the ability to tell Americans to engage in specific activities of any sort. For no other reason this should set every American back on their heels regardless of where a person resides within the political spectrum. This is the very thing that destroys nations, this is what the abyss of chaos looks like, and it’s not pretty. This comes from people who swore an oath to defend and protect the constitution, and they have deliberately set out to do the exact opposite. This is the babysitter killing the babies.

The states reserve the right to create universal health coverage or not, congress does not have the constitutional authority to do so without writing and passing a constitutional amendment (requiring 3/4ths majority of states agreeing). The states retain their sovereign rights, the right to deal with all issues not listed in the 18 enumerated powers of the federal congress. In order for congress to create universal health coverage, they must do so through a Constitutional Amendment in order to be legally binding. Otherwise it does not have the legal authority to do so.

The reason for these constitutional restrictions on congress is so that the states at a local level could provide the services its own people decided on. The constitution was designed so that the people could be as free as possible to choose for themselves what they wanted. People in New England want different things than people in rural Utah. The Federal government should be limited so that the states, closer and therefore more responsible to their citizens, would make most decisions.

Is universal healthcare a good thing or a bad thing? Sadly this is not even the issue now. What is at issue is how congress went about creating universal health care. There is a right way to do things which will strengthen our union, and there is a wrong way which obliterates the protections created by the Constitution. These very same protections gave us enough freedom from an oppressive government to create the strongest, wealthiest Nation the earth has ever seen. As Americans without political parties, this is something we as a people cannot allow to pass and die in the dark of night. All politics aside, the constitution is what makes us American. Without it… what are we? Slaves.

Forget for a moment we are discussing Nationalized Health Care. Forget about political correctness which demands we sugarcoat reality with the oversweet saccharine of soft tyranny. If our government can demand this of us, it can demand anything… for any reason it chooses. Robin Hood may have stolen from the rich to give to the poor becoming their hero, but he was still a thief. The ends do not justify the means.

Is it a good idea to destroy, make invalid and irrelevant the document from which all our laws descend, and from which every freedom mankind has ever held dear protects?

Without the Constitution binding government and limiting its powers, there is no United States. This is nothing short of a threat to the Nation.

SCOTUS will find this bill unconstitutional. The alternative is unthinkable.

Allan Erickson says:
FYI, Olivia is whoops the wonder wonk, the virtuoso of vitriol. She has one string and plucks it constantly.

Great article Dianna. How many states are suing? 39? But it's all a tempest in a teapot eh Obot? What Obot didn't tell you is the so-called waiver does not allow states to opt out altogether, so the federal law is still coercive, violating the 10th amendment, and will be ruled unconstitutional, unless Obama can stack the court beforeheand, which he is working on. As to November whoops, we will prevail, unless Obama manages to naturlaize 20 million voters by then. Then you can celebrate the final death throes of a once-great repbublic, pick up your shovel and your grey overalls, and get to work.
March 28, 8:29 AM
Obot DaveM says:
Our Reps have indeed, followed the will of the people. And "states rights" types are way off base"

... Wyden discussed -- for one of the first times in public -- legislative language he authored which "allows a state to go out and do its own bill, including having no individual mandate."

It's called the "Empowering States to be Innovative" amendment. And it would, quite literally, give states the right to set up their own health care system -- with or without an individual mandate or, for that matter, with or without a public option -- provided that, as Wyden puts it, "they can meet the coverage requirements of the bill."

"Why don't you use the waiver provision to let you go set up your own plan?" the senator asked those who threaten health-care-related lawsuits. "Why would you just say you are going to sue everybody, when this bill gives you the authority and the legal counsel is on record as saying you can do it without an individual mandate?"
March 27, 8:44 PM
Bill Cutting says:
Great Article Dianna, I was waiting for one these idiots to ask what this had to do with civil rights. Well here is what it has to do with jobs in the states where these companies operate. Less jobs!!!! And these are good paying Union jobs.
Just like the Democrats/Communists want.
Oh and if you are retired from one of these outfits, get ready for reduction or elimination of your health care benefits.
March 27, 7:14 PM
DNY says:
Add to all that has been rightly said in the article, the ultimate absurdity: it is not legal to sell health insurance across state lines, yet the 111th Congress purports to be regulating INTERSTATE commerce by forcing Americans to buy health insurance.
March 27, 6:42 PM
Dianna says:
Long time no see Olivia! I just wanted to give you a friendly reminder to bookmark your post here. Because for sure I want you to remember those words come November 2, 2010 and again in November of 2012.
March 27, 6:06 PM
Olivia says:
Give it up Di.

Last year you told me SCOTUS would rule Obama was not our legitimate president - did you give up on your birther quo warranto non-sense?


Is this the new wing nut case? It will never fly. All the experts are saying Interstate commerce clause makes the whole thing hunky dory, no matter how many badly written and ill conceived paragraphs you manage to string together.

Democrats won the election, the4y control the House and Senate, they are doing what they were elected to do.

Stop being such a poor sport and try to win an election for a change instead of spinning silly tales, and pretending you are a lawyer when you are not.

Why are you wing nuts such sore losers?
March 27, 5:42 PM
mexbeef says:
What isn't unconstitutional given the enumeration clause? Enumeration has not stopped the courts from rubber stamping laws for almost as long as I have lived. The courts have created this monster government, it is a little late to reign it in.
But, we can hope they will finally do the right thing. All that is left is hope now.
March 27, 5:36 PM
sportutegrl says:
Typical of Democrat laws -- they often have not just unentended consequences, but the exact opposite of what they want to accomplish. Democrats attempt to get more people health insurance coverage will actually result in more people losing their employment and thus their employer provided health insurance.
March 27, 5:05 PM