Florida and more than half of the states in the nation have challenged the federal government’s Affordable Care Act because it deprives Americans of their individual liberty and violates the United States Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to enforce constitutional limitations on federal authority — or, conversely, whether to allow the federal government to dominate states and individuals to the point of dictating day-to-day decisions.
The court should reaffirm the basic constitutional bargain struck among the states that makes our federal government one of limited, enumerated powers.
The act’s chief problem is its individual mandate, which requires virtually everyone to obtain health insurance coverage simply as a condition of living in America. Forced conscription into a commercial market is a startling new exercise of federal power that Congress has never before attempted.
The individual mandate’s stated goal is to lower insurance costs by forcing “healthy individuals” to buy expensive policies that they do not want or need so that insurers can charge less to others. Congress’s central planning on both the supply and demand side of the insurance market exceeds its constitutional authority because the bare power to “regulate” commerce does not include the power to force Americans into commerce. If it did, there would be no end to Congress “fixing” markets with the wallets of ordinary citizens. Congress could require Americans to obtain unwanted loans to bail out failing banks, to purchase a car to reinvigorate struggling carmakers or to buy solar panels to resuscitate failed Solyndra-like investments.Continue reading…
