Posted on 03/21/2010 11:08:47 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
With the House set to vote on health-care legislation, the congressional debate on the issue seems to be nearing its conclusion. But if the bill does become law, the battle over federal control of health care will inevitably shift to the courts. Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli II, has said he will file a legal challenge to the bill, arguing in a column this month that reform legislation "violate[s] the plain text of both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments." On Friday, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced that they will file a federal lawsuit if health-care reform legislation passes.
Will these cases get anywhere? Here is a guide to the possible legal challenges to a comprehensive health-care bill.
The individual mandate.
Can Congress really require that every person purchase health insurance from a private company or face a penalty? The answer lies in the commerce clause of the Constitution, which grants Congress the power "to regulate commerce . . . among the several states." Historically, insurance contracts were not considered commerce, which referred to trade and carriage of merchandise. That's why insurance has traditionally been regulated by states. But the Supreme Court has long allowed Congress to regulate and prohibit all sorts of "economic" activities that are not, strictly speaking, commerce. The key is that those activities substantially affect interstate commerce, and that's how the court would probably view the regulation of health insurance.
But the individual mandate extends the commerce clause's power beyond economic activity, to economic inactivity. That is unprecedented. While Congress has used its taxing power to fund Social Security and Medicare, never before has it used its commerce power to mandate that an individual person engage in an economic transaction with a private company...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
No, but the US is no longer governed under the constitution...our politicians have discarded that document.
No. But the courts won’t do anything. The courts will also strike down the states who try to resist.
The people will be in the field, eating grass and bleating.
This is the key. No way does the Roberts court allow this provision to survive. It's just not going to happen.
The short answer is NO.
ping
Under the Federalist system our Founding Fathers gave us, Congress had very few powers (Article 1 Section 8 US Constitution), and control over medical care and insurance is not in there. Everything else not in Article 1 section 8 goes to the State (10th Amendment).
We are not under the Constitution but communists rule. The parts of the Constitution the communists will keep will only be those parts that will build their power. Cannot understand why more Americans do not understand what is happening.
Does Elmer Fudd have trouble with the letter R?
Obamacare is not Constitutional either.
So much for the Constitution.
“Is health-care reform constitutional?”
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You know better than that; but your congressmen don’t care.
ROFL! Is Ed “Too Tall” Jones too tall?
“As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.”-—Thomas Jefferson
NO!
But Elmer Fudd still has trouble with the letter R...
Are forced, tax payer funded entitlements constitutional?
The outcome of any vote by Congress on health care is irrelevant since Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution does not specifically grant Congress the power to regulate health care! Therefore the so called legislation on its face is Unconstitutional! The people are not bound to comply with an Unconstitutional act of Congress! This is a power regulated to the states per the 10th Amendment!
It is the reason why Idaho and Virginia have passed legislation blocking federal health care from being illegally imposed on the citizens of those states by reasserting their 10th Amendment rights and 34 other states considering similar legislation! This is the point people need to hammer home with their Congress critters!
Did Rose Kennedy own a black dress?
This is a mega revenue producing bill that ORIGINATED in the SENATE.
The plain language from the US Constitution:
Article 1, Section 7, Clause 1 - "ALL Bills for raising REVENUE SHALL ORIGINATE in the HOUSE of Representatives;"
Nope this thing is not Constitutional.
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