I don’t know anything about the federal health reform bill, but in Massachusetts, if you don’t have insurance you don’t get the personal exemption on your state income tax. Thus the effect is higher tax paid. It’s functionally a fine, but it gets rolled into your taxes.
Don’t be silly. I haven’t read the new law myself, and there may or may not be specific provisions, but the usual enforcement for unpaid taxes is garnishment.
But speaking of constitutionality, how sound is it to compare the new tax to, say, Medicare?
How would they garnish the payments of someone who is self-employed?
They can levy bank accounts and retain tax refunds, too.
Banks? How quaint. I’m a hard-core Tea Partier who stores my gold in my survivalist bunker.
He’s kidding. Pretty sure. Yes, definitely, he’s kidding.
It’s the generic “I”, sort of like the generic “you”.
Maybe that was too much of a caricature, but I’m sure there are few out there…
BTW, according to MSNBC<, there are now 13 states suing, not 10.
In an article on I want to say Slate, it’s cited that the fine for not acquiring insurance is levied by the IRS. I’ll see if I can track it down.
Except for the Lopez decision. It is undeniable the Court has, over the years, permitted Congress to expand its authority under the commerce clause. To be sure, there are some cases which espouse principles to suggest the outcome in Congress’ favor. If I recall correctly, most if not all commerce clause cases decided by the Court were of the nature of Congress asserting the people could not engage in some activity. For example: Wickard, the farmer was prohibited from growing wheat in an amount beyond that which is allowed by law, even if the excess was for individual consumption (he was using it to feed his chickes.). Raich, the government can prohibit people from possession marijuana, even if the marijuana never moved through the channels of interstate commerce.
However, they have never decided a case on the basis of these merits and there is no prior case anyone can point to which unequivocally resolves this case for us. Here, Congress is not prohibiting activity but mandating an activity, and there may be enough on the Court, as was the case in Lopez, to tell Congress their power under the commerce clause does not reach this far. After all, as you noted, from an originalist perspective, the mandate crosses an extreme boundary, and there are presently two self-avowed originalist on the Court in J. Scalia, and Thomas, and originalist sympathizers in Roberts and Alito. If they can persuade J. Kennedy, this may be the case where the Court places a limit on the “substantially affects commerce” test and asserts such a test does not justify this exercise of power by Congress.
I would not be surprised if the Court upheld this amount of government power. However, I would not be surprised if the Court ruled this power unconstitutional. The Court may find the implication of such a power not palatable. The very notion Congress can mandate people to purchase a good/product may be just to extreme of a notion for the Court to swallow, or the inference following from it too extreme for them to accept.
Such language is not applicable here though, because the statute explicitly spells out the scheme. The statute tells us the tax imposed is calculated to make people purchase health insurance. I agree, Congress has regulatory power with taxation (the Whiskey tax sufficiently demonstrates this point) but the specific question here is whether this regulatory power under taxation includes the power to regulate people to purchase a good/product? The case you cited does not answer this question for us.
Here is an interesting article about the Supreme Court recently reigning in the Federal Government’s power under the commerce clause:
http://www.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=117236&catid=935
Here is an interesting quote from the article:
Public welfare.
The lawsuits" are symbolic, and are purely about governors pandering to their constiuents. Nothing I’ve read from legal experts (aside from the odd political shill in some right wing media sources) gives these things any real chance of success. This is what impotent loser rage looks like. These lawsuits are basically just so many flaccid putzes being waved around.
Im just a blowhard, not a lawyer, so I have a question for those who actually know what they’re talking about. Could there be a question of standing for the states filing these lawsuits? After all, the states themselves aren’t being required to do anything, are they? Could an argument be made that a suit can only be brought by an individual who has been taxed for not buying insurance?
The Court has used issues of standing before to avoid adjudicating thorny issues (e.g. Newdow). This part of the HCR [del]bill[/del] law does not go into effect until 2014. Could the Court at least temporarily blow off the lawsuits by declaring that the states have no standing? Yes, I know that the states have drafted their own meaningless legislation saying people can’t be taxed for not buying stuff, but the states have no jurisdiction over the IRS or the federal government, so what would be their standing in these lawsuits?
And the IRS is the United States of America’s version of the Gestapo. You are definitely guilty until proven innocent with them.
Actually, the IRS is the American version of the Finanzamt.
The Gestapo was not all about taking money, you know?
Actually, Nino styles himself a textualist, not an originalist. His book A Matter of Interpretation is an excellent read for the nuances of the difference.
Hell I am a lawyer and a blowhard and I asked the same thing above. I skimmed very quickly through South Dakota v. Dole, which was one of the few cases I could think of in which a state sued the federal government, but in that case the state itself, as a entity, was harmed by the legislation.
Thinking about it, the AG’s may have some standing if portions of the legislation conflict with a state statute, like in Gonzalez v. Oregon. I’m pretty sure they have to make the argument that the HCR bill directly contradicts a State statute, in an area of the law reserved to the several states by the Constitution.
Or something along those lines.
Virginia did pass a law forbidding forcing people to buy health care insurance, which is what would give Virginia’s AG standing.
So I don’t picture standing as an issue. But I do think that preemption, the supremacy clause, and the aforementioned taxation authority makes this case a loser for the states.
I don’t really see how that gives Virginia standing. Virginia has no jurisdiction over federal taxes.