Constitutional arguments on healthcare law repeal still not adding up

This morning’s Reno Gazette Journal Op-Ed page was one of those all too rare but welcome days when the lightbulb came on … they truly ‘get it’. In this case it was about efforts to repeal the hated ‘Obama-care’, otherwise known as the Affordable Healthcare for America Act of 2009 on constitutional grounds.

Governor-elect, Brian Sandoval was reportedly all aglow - or atwitter - over the recent ‘decision’ by a Virginia judge, in lockstep with the Virginia Attorney General, contending that the law is unconstitutional because of the individual mandate that requires citizens to buy health insurance, if it is not otherwise provided them by their employer or the state.

You might hope that Brian Sandoval has bigger issues to grapple with. But maybe not.

When it all went down last year, I lay awake, my stomach in a knot over this very issue. It was obvious that the ‘individual mandate’  would be one of the worst calamities to befall our democracy. Worse than the worst hate crimes. Worse than Jim Crow. Worse than the war in Afghanistan. Worse than the Wall Street collapse. Worse than …. well, just the worst. I heard Glenn Beck say so. And, he should know. The Cato Institute told him so via his tinfoil helmet.

Brought down to a local level, the individual mandate seems to work reasonably well in most states - you are required by law to have auto insurance if you drive a car. Has this wrecked democracy as we know it? Not the last time I checked. Yes, there are those scofflaws that won’t buy insurance - probably the same folks with teabags dangling from their TriCorne hats. They’re probably staying awake nights, too - trying to figure out how not to pay income taxes and protect themselves from imminent home intrusion by United Nations troops.

But in the absence of the rational solution - a single payer system - it was the best that we could do. The individual mandate requires everybody to be a part of the system, since that’s what makes insurance work. Spreading risk over the widest and most diverse possible pool of members. The largest number of uninsured were in the age group from 19 and 29. This segment, like those who’ve come before, thinks they’re bullet-proof. It’ll never happen to them, and it usually doesn’t - unless, like me, you’re on a cross-country ride and the horse falls down a crumbling embankment. On top of you. Ouch. That was a long recovery. Broken in nine places. But mostly, the young are the ones that help keep the costs down for those of us who managed to survive long enough to get old. Older, I mean.

The truly ironic part, was that a wide variety of businesses and well-financed politicians were proponents of the individual mandate - they could smell the enhanced profits that would be coming from nearly 50 million new customers.

Unfortunately, what the law didn’t address, is how the individual mandate would weigh unfairly upon the backs of the working poor. There’s always that segment caught between having enough to buy insurance with a decent, reliable paycheck (in short supply these days) and those broke enough to be on Medicaid or other public assistance/subsidy program.

Poliiticians from both sides of the aisle were able to turn a blind eye to that ‘problem’ in their rush to stifle discussion of a public option and pass something … anything. Besides, the news media’s fascination with the far sexier story of ‘death panels’ was way more entertaining!

But the individual mandate was a success in Massachusetts, under a very ‘conservative’ Governor, Mitt Romney, of all people. The rates of insured went way up, the rates of uninsured went way down. “It’s worked out better than I would have guessed,” said MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who serves on the board of the Massachusetts program. “We didn’t anticipate the increase in employer-sponsored insurance.”

Don’t you just hate it when Commie-Pinko- Slippery Slope Socialism works?

One of the better arguments I’ve read regarding the constitutionality of the Affordable Healthcare for America Act - and the ‘individual mandate’ comes from The New England Journal of Medicine.

Read it here:

Perspective

The Constitutionality of the Individual Mandate for Health Insurance

NEJM | January 13, 2010 | Topics: Health Law

Jack M. Balkin, J.D., Ph.D.

Once President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress have passed a health care reform bill, conservative groups are likely to challenge parts of it as unconstitutional, arguing that it oversteps Congress’s powers. A key target will be the individual mandate, which is designed to coax uninsured persons into purchasing insurance.

The term “individual mandate” is misleading for two reasons.

Click to read more ...

Is America a Christian nation? The Founders didn't think so.

This is an article I saw this morning on Reader Supported News - a great service, and they need your support as in a donation - “The Palin Principle: Bible Trumps Constituiton” by Rick Ungar, in TrueSlant.

Here’s an excerpt:

“As for author John Adams - a man with strong religious beliefs who allowed religion to play a part in his personal life but carefully avoided it in public matters - nowhere is there clearer proof of the man’s approach to this subject than in the little known “Treaty of Tripoli”, signed by President John Adams and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 1796, less than 10 years after the Constitution’s adoption.

Chapter 11 of the treaty reads:

“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; (emphasis added) as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

Treaty of Tripoli

Could it possibly be any clearer?”

Read the entire article …

How about an Oath do-over?

Updated on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 at 19:39 by mavenandmeddler

Everybody was paying hyper-uber-attention yesterday, probably much to the chagrin of Chief Justice Roberts, as he flubbed the inaugural oath. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is seldom called upon to do much outside the hallowed halls of the court, and the vast majority of those Justices have opted for the safe, conservative route and used crib notes for the swearing in.

Not, Justice Roberts. He just winged it. Way to go, Chief.

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