Supreme Court and the Individual Health Insurance Mandate

[Nym90]

As a matter of moral principle, why is it permissible to provide a good in the public sector and require it to be paid for via a tax, but improper to require it to be purchased in the private sector? As a matter of liberty, at least in the latter scenario you can choose who to acquire the service from.

Now, you may say that I am not making a legal argument, but I don't see this as a question of law. It is a question of proper policy and should be left to those intended to make policy decisions: Congress and the President.

The whole point of the individual mandate was as a compromise; achieve universal coverage through the private sector, instead of via the public sector as many progressives such as myself would've vastly preferred.

The idea that the mandate somehow fundamentally transforms the relationship between citizens and the government is bizarre to me; it certainly transforms it far less than Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or any other multitude of federal programs.

The decision as to whether this bill represents a bridge too far is best left to elected officials who are ultimately responsible much more directly to the voters. If Americans really want this bill repealed, they are more than welcome to elect a Republican President and elect sufficient numbers of Republican Senators to achieve a 60 seat majority in the Senate this fall so that they can repeal it (a Democratic President and 60 Democratic seats in the Senate being how we got it in the first place, of course).

Another interesting question; if the whole bill is struck down, what happens to portions of the bill already implemented such as monies already allocated and doled out by the Feds? Would states be required to pay back the money or do they get to keep it?

Yet another reason why Congress should be the one to repeal this bill, so that these questions can be asked of them by the voters, and the decision of what to replace the bill with (if anything) made by the executive and legislative branches.

[Nym90]

I don't see how the mandate can be considered an unconstitutional abridgement of liberty if the power to tax to raise funds for a single payer health care system isn't. The latter is clearly far more coercive. So in terms of a limiting principle, I don't see how this bill pushes the boundaries at all, unless the Court is prepared to declare Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security etc. unconstitutional as well as the law requiring hospitals to provide service, even if for free, to those whose lives are at risk.

[Nym90]

It's not about not liking the distinction, it's about there really not being one at all, at least in terms of infringement upon liberty. I think it's being extremely literal to a ridiculous degree to say that Congress has the power to tax because it is explicitly given so, but that if a regulation acts for all practical purposes like a tax except for being much less restrictive of freedom than a tax, it's unconstitutional because it's not a tax. The fact that Congress is given the power to tax implies that any regulations less coercive than a tax are also acceptable to further the same goals, IMO.

The Civil Rights Act also comes to mind as another regulation that is at least as coercive as the ACA; it requires individuals to engage in commerce with people whom they would prefer not to.