Posted on 03/17/2017 12:40:27 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
I don't see power over health care or insurance or anything like that being delegated to the federal government anywhere in the constitution, so it is reserved to the states and the people per the tenth amendment. The federal government cannot dictate who or what must be covered or at what price or any other terms or requirements for private health care insurance or coverage.
And, Robert's ruling notwithstanding, it is not a tax and no part of it is a tax.
Please tell me if I'm being overly naive and or where I'm wrong.
Everything that is wrong with the Administrative State is rolled up into Federal Control of Healthcare.
Healthcare control by the Federal Government epitomizes all that is wrong with the Administrative State.
Federal control of healthcare is illegal, therefore, federal control of healthcare is tyranny!
“Dismantling the administrative state could be Trump’s most valuable legacy, if it’s done correctly.”
“Trump Wants to Deconstruct the Regulatory State? Good. Here’s How You Start”
“Understanding the administrative state”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/02/understanding-the-administrative-state.php
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/022632463X/amazon0156-20/
“Is Administrative Law Unlawful?”
This book reveals administrative law to be not a benign, natural outgrowth of contemporary government but a pernicious—and profoundly unlawful—return to dangerous pre-constitutional absolutism.
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/022632463X/amazon0156-20/
The Heritage Foundation
“The Birth of the Administrative State: Where It Came From and What It Means for Limited Government”
For those who hold the Constitution of the United States in high regard and who are concerned about the fate of its principles in our contemporary practice of government, the modern state ought to receive significant attention. The reason for this is that the ideas that gave rise to what is today called “the administrative state” are fundamentally at odds with those that gave rise to our Constitution.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2007/pdf/fp16.pdf
Claremont Institute
“The Threat to Liberty”
..the “administrative state,” by which is meant the independent “fourth branch of government” that fits nowhere within the scheme of the Constitution as understood by its authors.
The administrative state represents a new and pervasive form of rule, and a perversion of constitutional self-government. It has deep theoretical roots that were overlooked for a long time, roots inimical to the Constitution, thereby providing a lesson in the importance of understanding the principles of the Constitution. A chief feature of the administrative state is its relentless centralization, but with a reciprocal effect: its mandates, regulations, distorting funding mechanisms, and elitist professionalism have corrupted our political culture all the way back down to local government. It is the chief reason why Americans increasingly have contempt for government.
http://www.claremont.org/crb/article/the-threat-to-liberty/
Blah blah blah blah blah
Federal control over healthcare is ILLEGAL! It is TYRANNY!!
What would be illegal about a clean repeal?
Thanks and here is some excellent commentary sent to me by a lurker:
Re: Am I way off base regarding federalized health care or insurance plans being unconstitutional?
From [redeacted] 03/17/2017 1:17:27 PM PDT
According to James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” no.
As James Madison explained in Federalist #45, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite…”
Even though Congress has the power to tax, Congress is limited to those few and defined articles (enumerated powers) on which it can spend the proceeds of those taxes.
Of course, those “few and defined” powers are found in Article I Section 8.
And not one clause contained therein serves a “redistributive,” or “charitable purpose” to take money from those that earned it to give it to those that did not. Healthcare is a commodity, not a “right”
And Thomas Jefferson wrote: “To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, ‘the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.”
“We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money.” — Davy Crockett, Speech in the US House of Representatives
“There is nothing more arrogant than a self-righteous income redistributor.” — Dick Armey
“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about “fairness” and “social justice,” what is your “fair share” of what someone else has worked for?” — Thomas Sowell
“Do not consider Collectivists as “sincere but deluded idealists”. The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not an ideal; brutality is not “idealistic,” no matter what its purpose. Do not ever say that the desire to “do good” by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.” — Ayn Rand
A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2011
What Our Constitution Permits
Here’s the House of Representatives new rule: “A bill or joint resolution may not be introduced unless the sponsor has submitted for printing in the Congressional Record a statement citing as specifically as practicable the power or powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the bill or joint resolution.” Unless a congressional bill or resolution meets this requirement, it cannot be introduced.
If the House of Representatives had the courage to follow through on this rule, their ability to spend and confer legislative favors would be virtually eliminated. Also, if the rule were to be applied to existing law, they’d wind up repealing at least two-thirds to three-quarters of congressional spending.
You might think, for example, that there’s constitutional authority for Congress to spend for highway construction and bridges. President James Madison on March 3, 1817 vetoed a public works bill saying: “Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled ‘An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements,’ and which sets apart and pledges funds ‘for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the common defense,’ I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States and to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives, in which it originated.”
Madison, who is sometimes referred to as the father of our Constitution, added to his veto statement, “The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers.”
Here’s my question to any member of the House who might vote for funds for “constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses”: Was Madison just plain constitutionally ignorant or has the Constitution been amended to permit such spending?
What about handouts to poor people, businesses, senior citizens and foreigners?
Madison said, “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
In 1854, President Franklin Piece vetoed a bill to help the mentally ill, saying, “I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. (To approve the measure) would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.”
President Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill for charity relief, saying, “I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit.”
Again, my question to House members who’d vote for handouts is: Were these leaders just plain constitutionally ignorant or mean-spirited, or has our Constitution been amended to authorize charity?
Suppose a congressman attempts to comply with the new rule by asserting that his measure is authorized by the Constitution’s general welfare clause. Here’s what Thomas Jefferson said: “Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”
Madison added, “With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”
John Adams warned, “A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” I am all too afraid that’s where our nation stands today and the blame lies with the American people.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM
This horse is not out not the barn yet. Constitutional conservatives should vote no on RUNOcare and push for a clean repeal bill.
Jim,
you are firmly correct.
a national health insurance operated by the feds is most certainly unconstitutional
Please tell me if I’m being overly naive and or where I’m wrong.
If people are willing to accept Federal control over healthcare, then they may just as well accept UN control over healthcare.
Why not have the UN vote for control over healthcare? If it passes, then they have decided to have control over healthcare. Who is to complain? The United States has an ambassador. The United States has a representative. So the United States cannot complain if the UN votes to take control over healthcare.
The UN will create the World Health Care Act (WHCA). Just like the American Health Care Act. Why not?
Health care acts have been at:
RomneyCARE (state level)
ObamaCARE/RinoCARE (country level)
WorldCARE (world level)
Why not?
Why should the world not have its citizens have “Our wonderful new Healthcare Bill is now out for review and negotiation,” Trump tweeted.
“It’s a big, fat, beautiful negotiation,” Trump declared during the first meeting of his Cabinet at the White House. “Hopefully we’ll come up with something that’s going to be really terrific.”
“It’s going to take a little while to get there,” Trump added. “But once it does it’s going to be a thing of beauty. I wish it didn’t take a year or two years. But that’s what’s going to happen.”
WHCA!!
What do you think?
WHCA!!
(/s)
I couldn’t agree more. The federal government has gone almost completely off-course.
Thanks, Jim.
Thanks for posting the article from Walter E. Williams.
He is spot on!
So much clarity in his article!
But there are more than 10,000 other unconstitutional laws that have been passed before this.
ML/NJ
Jim, at root of the legality of these socialist things, is the 16th Amendment. I will explain.
The imposition of income tax without apportionment was implemented in a tax code of 14 pages in length in 1913. That was the same year the 17th and 18th came into existence. All of these amendments should never have seen the light of day and each has its own sordid history.
You may be surprised to learn that Obamacare came about using exactly the same playbook that FDR used to ram through his Social Security bill which became the Social Security tax. Same thing, hardly any difference.
For Obamacare, the democrats knew the republicans (stupid republicans) would chase the Commerce Clause ‘red herring argument’ while Obama’s lawyers prepared to present a tax argument inside SCOTUS, just like FDR’s lawyers did in the 1930s in regards to Social Security. The democrats of 2009 were aware of the FDR playbook and were following it to a tee.
And you may be surprised to know that the democrats had prepared to pass a universal health insurance in the 1930s as well, but held off because ‘too many things’ were getting rammed through. As it was, the health care law that the 1930s socialists were working on was put on the shelf for a later date because the public tide was finally beginning to turn against FDR. Americans started to smell ‘dictator’ in him and they didn’t like it. He was smart enough to see the winds change direction.
For more than 70 years, the old socialist healthcare plan was sitting on the shelf but discussed in democrat socialist circles just waiting for the right timing. They found the time in 2009 when Obama was told this was his number one priority, not the financial collapse or the Wall St. fraud, the socialist healthcare plan from the 1930s was a bigger priority. Because they knew they would never have a chance again in a long, long time.
In the 1960s, the democrats of the LBJ ‘Great Society’ era pushed through Medicare on the same tax entitlement scheme as Social Security had been rammed through three decades before.
All of these income and payroll taxes are taxes on income without apportionment. So they are legal under the 16th Amendment. Without the 16th, they could not exist, or at least not for long before a court declared them unconstitutional which SCOTUS had done several times prior to 1913.
In sum, the 16th has instituted socialism into American society.
Insofar as Medicare is concerned, I am always hearing older folks express appreciation for some procedure being paid for through Medicare, and just as often I hear of procedures not covered that some think should be covered. But what I really observe is the COST of procedures being out of the range that most people are able to pay. I know from experience that most procedures and treatments in every hospital and clinic have rates that are pegged off of Medicare reimbursements, so that Medicare adjusts to rising healthcare costs while healthcare costs peg to Medicare reimbursements, forming a vicious cycle of costs spiraling out of control.
In other words, government is not the solution, government is the problem.
The only government role in healthcare that makes sense and that is appropriate is for it to foster competition, promote a free and fair marketplace, and to bust up state healthcare monopolies. Everything else can be handled quite well and much better at the local levels. There are no global solutions to healthcare that prompts federal government involvement other than busting up monopolies and ensuring free and fair markets.
Arguing minutia like this is part of the problem.
The Federal Government has absolutely no Constitutional role when it comes to medicine or "Health Care." No dollars can be spent on "Health Care."
It doesn't matter whether people think Government "Health Care" is a good idea or not until and unless there would be some Constitutional Amendment that gives Congress the power to Legislate regarding "Health Care."
ML/NJ
If more districts would throw out their weasels like Eric Cantor and elect people like Dave Brat instead of re-electing people like Paul Ryan we would be repealing, not rearranging Obamacare.
Best vote I ever cast was in June of 2014 to Cantorize my weasel.
We elected a populist nationalist who has repeatedly promised to take care of everybody. I honestly think that if this plan doesn’t work out, Trump’s next move is to go to the Democrats with an offer of a public option and/or at least a version of nationalized healthcare. He wants to replace Obamacare with something better. And I don’t think a former steel worker or mine worker now employed by Dollar General is going to care too much about the 10th Amendment if he gives them something better.
I was very glad, and proud, that this was Trump's take, as well. It is most certainly what The Constitution demands.
Wouldn’t Trump veto a clean repeal bill?
Trump is generally in favor of entitlements (he’s certainly not going to touch Social Security or Medicare). He just wants the programs to be smart.
Those of you who think President Trump is going to take a position that the federal government has no role in healthcare - meaning that Medicare is unconstitutional - raise your hands.....
I’ll totally admit that RINOcare is a disaster in the making.
But it strikes me as incredibly weird to suddenly be holding President Trump to some kind of Constitutional Conservative Lithmus Test AFTER the election.
He’s a populist. The only way you will get him to support total repeal is to convince him that total repeal is popular. And it’s not. At least not in total.
People like the rules on pre-existing conditions, lifetime caps, and leaving children on policies until age 26. I could be wrong, but I also think that Medicaid expansion is reasonably popular as long as it is called Medicaid expansion and not Obamacare.
But he understands that something (many things) is (are) wrong with the direction our country has been taking. To use Michael Savage's words: something is wrong with (undermining) our borders, language and culture. To the extent President Trump is able to right the national direction in these three areas, I will excuse him if he doesn't entirely destroy the socialist monster in Washington.
ML/NJ
The issue is not healthcare. The issue is not whether the Feds have the constitutional right (they don’t) to be in the insurance business. The issue is the socialist revolution.
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