There’s a single door. Wickard opened the door. If subsequent courts decide to stop Congress from walking through the door, then they are no longer deciding the cases on the principle, but on the effect.
Why shouldn’t Wickard be upended? Because we have sixty years worth of federal government regulation, all hanging its hat on Commerce Clause powers.
Could the court say, “OK, enough’s enough!” Sure they could. Sounds like they might, actually, and I won’t weep at the effect of that, because I dislike the ACA.
But I will weep at the court’s decision to evaluate their decision on the results of the law, and not on the principle. If we, the people, sovereign as we are, don’t like the power we’ve handed our government, we cannot run crying to Uncle Nino to fix it for us. Amend the Constitution.
This is what I always say when the left goes crying to the courts to fix something they can’t win at the ballot box. Why should I exempt my own side?
It’s not a direct tax. It’s a tax on events (not guaranteeing ability to pay for health care) like a sales tax and not on real estate nor on individual, so I don’t think it would even fall under Art. I Sec. 9.
You have to pay a penalty for not buying health insurance.
That’s the purpose of Obamacare - to force everyone to buy health insurance. There is no exemption for those who are willing and/or capable of paying all their own health care costs out-of-pocket.
Blatantly untrue, and laughably partisan (Obamacare? Really? You want to play the socialism card too?). The purpose for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Acts are to make sure more people are more able to pay for health care while avoiding single payer. The method that Congress chose was to require insurance companies to cover more high risk people (the Guaranteed Issue and Community ratings). To make that work, they found it was essential to have either more people involved in the payor pool or have more money available to the government to pay for health care.
The Acts aren’t an attempt to put money in the hands of health insurance companies or to help them get more coverage to increase profits. It’s to make a system of more coverage work.
So should Congress outlaw mowing one’s own yard because of the negative effect on the landscaping industry, Judge (and/or Justice) Bricker would uphold said law? I’m not being sarcastic, I’m trying to suss your logic.
Can Congress require the purchase of cable TV, including the porn channels? Require Muslims to buy alcohol and Hindus beef? Require UPC tattoos or under-skin implants to facilitate transactions? Forbid or require the use of contraception (or indeed, sex itself) if they decide the economy requires more or less citizens? If Congress decides to go the full Logan’s Run and decide that workers past the age of economic utility need to be executed, that’s allowed under Wickard?
Pointing out when Hamlet makes false statements doesn’t help - he just repeats himself. But yes, the purpose of Obamacare is to force people to buy insurance.
So all the stuff about how everyone participates in the health care system is beside the point - the purpose of Obamacare is to get you to particpate in certain, specific ways.
You’re confusing the means with the ends. Shodan said: “That’s the purpose of Obamacare - to force everyone to buy health insurance.” That’s wrong. The ends are not to force everyone to buy health insurance, the end is to have more people receive affordable health care they can pay for. One of the means (and not by any stretch the only means) of doing so is to encourage people who don’t have health insurance to buy it, but if they choose not to, to have more money in government coffers to cover the costs if/when people need health care beyond what they can pay for.
Isn’t “inaction” enough of a bright-line principle?
Wickard arguably set the precedent that “we can penalize someone for choosing to engage in activities that have ramifications on interstate commerce; he can avoid the penalty by opting out of said commerce and doing nothing.” This case could be about saying “…but the commerce clause doesn’t let Congress penalize someone who isn’t engaging in such activities: he can’t opt out of commerce by doing nothing, because he’s already doing nothing.”
Couldn’t they say that, in results-free language? Such a decision would apply to Scalia’s broccoli hypothetical, and to the burial hypothetical, and to all the other stuff they were trotting out: drawing the commerce-clause line at the point of inaction, pointing out as they did that the power to regulate commerce doesn’t include the power to create it?
Like I said, when it is pointed out that you made a false statement, you repeat yourself. The purpose, or the end, or the effect, or whatever meaningless distinction-without-a-difference you want to posit, of Obamacare, is to compel people to buy health insurance, and your protests to the contrary are false.
I am not Justice Bricker, but I would say that the landscaping market would be found to not be an interstate one. However, if it were an interstate market that fell under the purview of the Commerce Clause, then I don’t see how this example doesn’t follow directly from Wickard. Of course Congress could outlaw mowing your lawn, just as it can outlaw growing your own wheat.
I actually want to spin this in a somewhat different direction, if the digression may be allowed. Suppose Congress were to pass a law providing (refundable) tax credits to everyone that could prove they bought cable TV, or purchased some minimum quantity of beef a year, and raised taxes correspondingly to offset the cost of the credits. This seems clearly Constitutional to me (and, in fact, is exactly how the government has been incentivizing behavior for decades).
In what way would the effects of my tax-and-credit scheme be different from a mandate-and-penalize scheme?
My point is, the issues with the mandate seem like they have to be about the mechanism, rather than the result, since exactly the same ends can be accomplished by plainly Constitutional means.
But if the results of the mandate are not unconstitutional, then all that really matters is that the mandate is a necessary component of an overall end (regulating the healthcare market) that is Constitutional, right?
Constitutional analysis requires balancing of conflicting provisions on the basis of the importance of the underlying interest.
It’s clear that the First Amendment prohibits Congress from forcing individuals to violate sincerely held religious beliefs, in most contexts. That’s why PPACA includes a religious conscience exemption to the individual mandate for religions which fall under §1402(g)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Reread the last couple of pages of this thread. Hell, just read our exchanges. You simultaneously stomp your foot declaring that the ACA is not about getting people to buy insurance, but “health care”, then repeatedly talk about how its about getting more people to have health insurance. Just go back an=d see for yourself. Really.
It seems that you are under the impression that just because the goal of the legislation maybe be worthwhile, and that the mandate is the lynchpin that makes it all work, therefore the law is both 1) good and 2) constitutional. But, uh, that’s not the way it works.
Bottom line: the law forces people to either buy health insurance or suffer a penalty. That is plain fact. You’d do yourself better service not arguing against those aspects.
Thanks for noticing. I pointed out that I made no naked assertions, and you’d think he might realize his error and apologize, especially after you, a third party pointed it out. I guess that’s just not his thing.
I’ve re read it. I’ve explained it repeatedly. I understand that some people simply continue to confuse the ends and the means of the legislation, and the role that plays in determining whether the legislative action is a Constitutional exercise of Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce. I’ve tried to drag the discussion beyond the simple repetition of talking points and into a more in depth discussion of the legislation. To no avail, but, hey, such is life. I can’t force people to get beyond they’re talking points.
If the entirety of the ACA was the individual mandate, if you completely ignore the rest of the legislation, if there was nothing else relevant to determining the Constitutionality of the legislation, the question would certainly be much closer. Had Congress not bothered with the Guaranteed Issue and Community Rating and had simply enacted a law that required everyone to buy health insurance or go to jail, you may even be right.
But, as you said: “that’s not the way it works”.
The judiciary has to determine whether or not the legislation is a proper exercise of the power to regulate interstate commerce, not whether or not the talking points are loudly repeated. And, in this case, the legislation is a regulation of the health care/health insurance industry, which is, by a wide margin, in interstate commerce.
I think the legislation would be more successful, have more support, and be more clearly Constitutional if they added another option, perhaps a cash based health savings account, or higher all around taxes with breaks for those who get health insurance. I would like the legislation more if it did those things too, instead of simply require health insurance or a payment to the government. But, again as you say, wise and Constitutional aren’t the same thing. And that isn’t the legislation we’re talking about.
What we are talking about is the legislation actually enacted. And what was enacted was regulating health care and health insurance, which is clearly within the realm of interstate commerce.
I’ve already dealt with this. As I said very early: But this isn’t an either/or proposition. We’re both using different ways of describing the same thing in an effort to make a point. If you only focus on the individual mandate and ignore all the rest of the legislation, you’re description could be apt. But if you actually consider the legislation as a whole (which is what a deferential Supreme Court would do) and you actually consider the purpose of the individual mandate (hint: it’s not to force people to buy health insurance, it’s to regulate interstate commerce), then I’m much closer to the mark." I suppose I could try and find other ways of explaining it, but I’ve realized that some people just want to throw around talking points. I can’t help that.
Simply stating: “the law forces people to either buy health insurance or suffer a penalty” and is thus unconstitutional isn’t persuasive to me. There’s no analysis there, there’s no reasoning based on prior cases there. There’s not much there.
But, in an effort to once again get beyond these things, I think what that talking point is trying to say is that a person’s decision on how and when to pay for their medical care does not fall within the realm of interstate commerce to allow Congress to regulate it. Is that it? Am I close? Is there a way I can get you beyond talking points?
Thanks for emphasizing this, because I missed the post earlier. You and Frylock, are right. I went for the cheap dismissal and joke instead of crediting your explanation. I went on to counter your explanation, but I shouldn’t have snipped your quote up that way. Sorry.