


HT: NetRightNation
Individual liberty anywhere is a threat to the Progressive-Collectivist Cause everywhere.
The Democrats' health-care overhaul asserts for Congress a power that the framers of the Constitution never envisioned: the power to force Americans to purchase unwanted goods or services.(by Robert A. Levy and Michael F. Cannon, excerpted from philly.com)
With all the hype, one might think the "public option" is the linchpin of the Democratic health plan. Yet Congress has created entitlements in the past, and enrollment in a public option would not be mandatory (at least not initially).The legislation's centerpiece is really the "individual mandate" - an unprecedented legal requirement that Americans purchase health insurance under penalty of law. The mandate is nearly universal, and without it, as President Obama admitted to a joint session of Congress, the legislation would fall apart.
But is it constitutional? The Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. Does that power extend to behaviors, such as not purchasing health insurance, that are neither interstate nor commerce?If you think the answer is a self-evident "no," then you haven't been following the Supreme Court over the past seven decades. Instead of serving as a shield against states that attempt to interfere with interstate commerce, the commerce power today has become a sword that the federal government wields in pursuit of a boundless array of socio-economic programs.