As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
I'm a little late in coming to it, but, over at the website of the American Interest, Walter Russell Mead has posted a marvelous essay on the dubious constitutionality of ObamaCare--and the dubiousness of ObamaCare, period. "Two years ago," Mead observes,
governors who filed lawsuits challenging the healthcare bill’s constitutionality were dismissed as Red State extremists and ideologues with names like "Butch" Otter. Hadn’t they read the Commerce Clause, the bien pensant press would ask. What kind of Flat Earthers were these people, anyway?
Today, not even the White House seems sure that its healthcare reform bill is constitutional.
But if nobody's sure whether ObamaCare is constitutional, what does that suggest about the legislation on its other merits?
Writing a bill that passes constitutional muster should be easy in a Congress so rich in lawyers and legislation writers. Writing a bill that successfully improves American healthcare delivery while controlling costs, on the other hand, is hard. Very, very hard.
If they did so poorly at the easy part of their task, the part where we can actually measure and monitor their success, what kind of mess have they made of the hard and murky parts that nobody, including the authors of the bill, really understands?
A murky mess that's probably unconstitutional.
ObamaCare delenda est.
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Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
Justice Kennedy, and Justice Kennedy alone, gets to decide.
Mar '11
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
It's precisely because they don't even try to answer the easy question that we get legislation that only Rube Goldberg could follow. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. Whether a piece of proposed legislation is constitutional or not is a simple answer, or at least it should be.
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
The irony is that, if the Supreme Court declares the law unconstitutional, it might save the the career of the man most responsible for its passage into law.
Apr '11
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
Despite it's dubious constitutionality, at least 40% of the country supports ObamaCare. A large minority of voters don't care if the government violates the supreme law. To me, that's more shocking than the law's bumbling authors.
Mar '11
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
Exactly. ObamaCare was never meant to be more than a stalking horse for the passage of a single payor system. What better way to argue for a second term than to say the bill was flawed from the beginning (without mentioning that he voted "present" by allowing Pelosi and Reid to draft the thing) and to say that the second term will be dedicated to getting single payor passed.
Oct '10
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
Doesn't Article 1, Section 8 make it very clear that this is unconstitutional? I can't find in the Constitution anything that authorizes Congress to create a national health care system.
Aug '10
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
Double facepalm.
Mar '11
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Double facepalm. · Dec 5 at 8:54am
Also doubleplusungood.
Mar '11
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
Jun '10
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
That's because 40% of the country doesn't care about the constitution. It's like playing tennis with the net down.
Mar '11
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
But if Kagan recuses herself...oh nevermind...
Apr '11
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
There is no authorization for ObamaCare nor for any of the Great Society or New Deal programs.
It doesn't matter when 40+% of voters don't care if the supreme law is violated. People get the government they deserve.
This Time Magazine article, One Document Under Siege, expresses the mainstream liberal attitude towards the Constitution. It's freakin' scary.
May '10
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
They passed the bill without reading it.
We shouldn't even be considering what the legislation says.
They passed the bill without reading it.
It's illegitimate, regardless of the Constitution. We do not empower our political representatives to make blind choices.
Whether or not Obamacare is overturned, our system has failed grossly to uphold a most basic precept of governance.
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
Not so fast. It's only hard to improve "healthcare delivery while controlling costs" if the planted axiom for legislation is micromanagement by state power. Yes, it is darned hard to create the thousands of pages of a priori rules and tens of thousands of pages of regulation necessary to strait-jacket the economic decisions of millions of independent actors (c.f., Soviet Union, collapse of).
However, in this case the strait-jacket is intended to suffocate the patient. We already see it beginning to play out in accelerating health insurance premium increases as the market prepares for the onset of the Affordable Care Act [sic]. If ObamaCare isn't killed soon, the average citizen will, as intended, see daily evidence of that liberal nostrum, "market failure," leaving a single-payer system--"like every other advanced democracy"--the only reasonable solution.
Market failure by government direction behind-the-scenes, just as in the recent housing bubble.
ObamaCare delenda est
May '10
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
It all goes back to our country having founders that were criminally negligent nitwits. Otherwise, they would have had the simple good sense to include an article of the Constitution that disallowed guys named Kennedy from holding any public office.
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
And another thing: Government regulation prevents innovation of the the sort that drives cost-reduction in other markets. The most value-releasing innovations are changes in business models--think about how you buy books and music nowadays and who makes money from these transactions. State micromanagement makes this sort of innovation essentially illegal, or at least very very difficult.
If the local Tower Records were certified by the Bureau of Audio Entertainment, music selections vetted by the Music Quality Commission, and "necessary and proper" purchases reimbursed by the Federal Center for Music Services, well, you would never have heard of iTunes, that's for certain.
And music would, on average, be expensive, unfulfilling and in short supply.
Jul '11
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Double facepalm. · Dec 5 at 8:54am
Better than Justice Kagan/Sotomeyor/Ginsberg making the final vote.
What Justice Kennedy may not fully appreciate, as he sits there and contemplates whether or not compelling me to purchase a product is just A OK, is that the seeds of the next revolution and civil war are sown in to this bill.
Edited on Dec 5, 2011 at 1:07pmRe: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
Huge laws, gobs of regs and billions of dollars for administration all to replace the simple transcation of my doctor handing me a bill to pay, which is how I buy everything else.
Jul '11
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
I do not take insurance and my life is just great.
Re: As the Supreme Court Ponders ObamaCare....
DocJay
I do not take insurance and my life is just great. · Dec 5 at 11:51am
For many, actually most, it's the smartest financial move. That argument was drowned out in the whole debate and continues to be.