Chemerinsky, dean and professor of law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, rebuts claims that Congress' health care reform proposals that include a mandate for people to buy health insurance are constitutionally suspect.
Congress, Chemerinsky maintains, has constitutional authority, such as its powers to regulate commerce and to tax and spend that allow it to require people to buy health insurance.
Chemerinsky writes:
Under an unbroken line of precedents stretching back 70 years, Congress has the power to regulate activities that, taken cumulatively, have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. People not purchasing health insurance unquestionably has this effect.
There is a substantial likelihood that everyone will need medical care at some point. A person with a communicable disease will be treated whether or not he or she is insured. A person in an automobile accident will be rushed to the hospital for treatment, whether or not he or she insured. Congress would simply be requiring everyone to be insured to cover their potential costs to the system.
Regarding Congress' constitutional power to tax and spend Chemerinksy notes:
Congress can require the purchase of health insurance and then tax those who do not do so in order to pay their costs to the system. This is similar to Social Security taxes, which everyone pays to cover the costs of the Social Security system. Since the 1930s, the Supreme Court has accorded Congress broad powers to tax and spend for the general welfare and has left it to Congress to determine this.
Chemerinsky's entire article is available here. The professor also addressed the constitutionality of health care reform in an earlier column for the Los Angeles Times.
Uh Please, this is more than
Uh Please, this is more than just requiring people to get insurence. And as far as the constitutionality of this legislation I think you better go back and hit those law book.
This legislation provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated out regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.
Funny how they can use Interstate Commerce as reasoning but deny insurance companies from dealing across state lines...ridiculous.
If your insurance coverage doesn't live up to
the Health Choices Administrator appointed by Obama there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a tax instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn’t work because there is no recourse in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the “due process of law.
This is nothing more than a huge power grab by the executive branch with ideas of fundamentally changing our countrys democratic process and constitution.
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