Photo snarfed from this site, in case you have a hankering to buy these: http://laurajul.dk/2011/07/29/fill-in-the-blank-cards/
I have a bet going with a fellow Democratic activist. I’m asking our readers to help me settle the bet by taking this as seriously as possible.
(Note: if you’re one of the people who can take nothing seriously — and you know who you are — just don’t answer at all. If you want to leave a smart-ass comment noting that you can’t answer, well, if you’re one of those people I’d expect nothing less of some of you.)
For the purposes of this question, I want you to try to think like a Democrat defending the health care law. (Again, if you find this impossible, just don’t answer. I don’t want your brain damage on my conscience.) All I need you to do in comments is to fill in the blank within the statement below as simply (meaning in as few words) and honestly as possible, although if you need to write a full paragraph to do it justice, go ahead:
“The health care mandate as currently structured is constitutional because ________________.”
Easy. huh? Thanks for your time. We’ll no doubt be discussing the results before long.
About Greg Diamond
Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that.
Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too.
He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.)
His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)
The law is a choice not a mandate, you can choose to get insurance or pay a fine.
Second like car insurance, car insurance is also a choice. You can risk your licence, car and a fine if you are do not have it.
If one is unconstitutional both are.
In both cases all you have to do is not get sick or not get pulled over then you do not have to pay, except for that month or so where you have to provide proof.
Also in both cases if you do get sick or have an accident rightly or wrongly everyone else pays for you if something happens if you are not insured.
A choice to me feels like either driving or not driving however the healthcare mandate is just for living and as long as suicide is illegal, one does not seem to have a choice without facing the consequences of failing to obtain the required coverage…although in a prior post, it was brought up that not everyone has to get coverage (and still presumably not pay the fine) although I am still unsure as the factual correctness of that or not.
The choices you indicate are on the punishment side. It is required to have insurance to drive- one has a choice whether to drive or not. It seems to be required to have insurance just for living- one does not have a legal choice to proactively end life.
It’s a fill-in-the-blank question, dawg. That’s part of the exercise. Be brief as you can. Please give it another shot.
“…because there will be at least 5 supreme court justices who will say it is.”
If it was an easy answer, it would be a 9-0 decision- or not even go to the SC. I doubt it will be though…
The answer is in the Attorney General Eric Holder’s three-page, single-spaced letter delivered to Fed. Judge Smith by noon today, which is about now.
Read it!
The health care mandate as currently structured is UNconstitutional because the individual mandate seeks to regulate economic inactivity, which is the very opposite of economic activity. And because activity is required under the Commerce Clause, the individual mandate exceeds Congress’ commerce power, as it is understood, defined, and applied in existing Supreme Court case law.
Point take…on the other side of the coin, a fairly compelling case can be made that the choice for inactivity does not exist in an economic vacuum…it affects the activity of others, economically, and thus ALL of it is a form of activity, and within the power of Congress to regulate under the Commerce Clause.
Can’t you read instructions, skally? For you it’s supposed to be a role play!
I couldn’t bring myself to do that Mr. D.
I don’t buy the “inactivity is activity” argument. I don’t think that we have travelled THAT far down the rabbit hole yet.
You have to keep in mind that we’re talking about healthcare and its impact on the economy here…not whether or not the government can make you buy paper towels.
Can’t bring yourself to do it? OK. I’ll mark you down for “untermensch.”
Pero, skall:
Many have argued that the economic “inactivity” of sitting on your fat damn ass without health insurance is actually a sort of economic activity, because
every droplet of buttsweat, every squush of ass flesh, every little silent fart – represents a few hundred extra dollars on the rest of us civilians’ insurance expenditures.
Since when is inactivity, activity? When the demagogic leftist reasoning says so. By this reasoning all things are possible. The left has said for nearly a century we need a new Constitution because ours is one of “negative” rights and limits on the state, well we see that is no longer the case. But just in case, we should let Nancy Pelosi and Pres. Obama re-write it just to clarify it for all of us dummies.
because President Obama says it is, and after all he is a trained constitutional lawyer and should know better than a bunch of old people in black robes.
It is constitutional because it has not been proven otherwise.
It is currently constitutional.
Wow- ascribing presumptive infallibility to the legislative process.
That’s a new one!
That reasoning sounds similar to inactivity is also activity.
… it is a tax. it just isn’t called a tax.
@dawabbit – You are correct, in a sense. BHO and the dems did not want to institute Obamacare as a tax because it would not have passed. And BHO said he would not raise taxes on those under $250K.
So rather than institute a new tax they attempted to mutilate the Constitution.
OK right up until the word “mutilate.” Then you earned a “come on, dude.”
*In its current configuration…two things are absolutely necessary to retain: (1) Making every Insurance Company take a certain percentage of “Pre-Existing Condition” patients…on what they used to call: “Assigned Risk”. (2) Keeping Insurance Coverage for children living at home and under 26 years of age.
All the other 10,000 pages of details need revision. Some Constitutional…most not!
Those that believe that the Supreme Court is going to deny all provisions of Obama Care…..are living in an altered state of consciousness. We are so tied to the World
Court now…..the days of an independent judiciary….are long gone folks. We already
have a One World Order….believe it. Now deal with it.
You wrote it, so it must be true.
*We can be humble……time will tell.
I’m sorry I can’t help you more with this, friend.
Um … because the Commerce Clause has been generously interpreted for oh-so-long?
Because of the government’s duty to “provide for the general welfare?”
What’re you trying to achieve with your bet?
I think that Dems are screwing up in their belief that this is obviously true or, if true, easy to understand. We should be able to answer this question.
For the record, the power to “provide for the common defense and general welfare” is part of the taxation power, not the commerce regulation power. And the generous interpretation of the Commerce Clause (even aided by the Necessary and Proper Clause) has arguably never reached this far.
So …… in your opinion Obamacare is toast?
I wouldn’t go that far.
First, Kennedy may just be being dramatic in some of the signals that he’s sending, particularly regarding severability. I do think that some of the most popular reforms (no lifetime limits, OK for kids up to 26 years, no pre-existing condition clause etc.) could well follow the mandate down the drain, if that’s where it’s heading, but scuttling the entire law under these circumstances would be drastic and very unusual.
Second, it’s possible that the Administration could still win the case on the merits through its argument that the Necessary and Proper Clause allows the government to augment the Commerce Clause in any way necessary, including pulling people to active participation in markets in which they otherwise participate passively. I can’t rule that out.
Third, Kennedy might simply find a way to say that this government action is acceptable under the Taxation power (augmented by the Necessary and Proper Clause), and that his reaching that determination means that he doesn’t have to address the Commerce Clause argument at all. (If he thinks that he has a way to resolve a case without reaching a novel constitutional question, that’s actually what he’s supposed to do. This is a principle called “constitutional avoidance,” which is oft honored in the breach.)
So I wouldn’t call it “toast” yet — but it is in the toaster and the toaster is on.
“And the generous interpretation of the Commerce Clause (even aided by the Necessary and Proper Clause) has arguably never reached this far.”………. Hmmmm
It did in war on drugs!
There is no commerce possible without a contract; and
The objective of the contract must be for a legal purpose. For example, a contract for illegal distribution of drugs is not a binding contract because the purpose for which it exists is not legal, therefore, there is no commerce in illegal drug distribution so it should not be regulated by the federal government — only by state.