“But despite seven decades of stretching by a Supreme Court eager to accommodate every congressional whim, the Amazing Elastic Commerce Clause is still not expansive enough to cover the unprecedented command that people purchase a product from a private company in exchange for the privilege of existing.”
“And stretched to its logical conclusion, the mandate’s policy implications are absurd. As one successful political opponent of the mandate once said: ‘If a mandate was the solution, we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody buy a house.’ That’s probably somewhat exaggerated, but it’s basically a fair point. And it was first made on the campaign trail by President Obama.”
“The White House had to play favorites with Senators and special interests to pass ObamaCare, and its implementation is no less ugly. But the waiver wave is most telling for what it says about the architects of this plan. By bending their own rules, they’re conceding their destructiveness.”
This study analyzes the different mandates each state imposes on its insurance market and determines the added costs of each. ObamaCare includes several of these coverage mandates, like ‘guaranteed issue,’ which will have driven up costs in states which have tried them, and will drive up costs nation-wide as well.
“This change works well as part of an incrementalist strategy to destroy the private insurance market–especially patient-driven healthcare. I realize that may sound cynical. But the far left has made no secrets about its desire to create a single-payer system and to use a strategy of patient trench warfare (no pun) to create it. Obamacare was a major advance towards that end and, tactically, the eventual destruction of HSAs must figure in to said strategy.”
“Aerospace giant Boeing is joining the list of companies that say the new health care law could have a potential downside for their workers. In a letter mailed to employees late last week, the company cited the overhaul as part of the reason it is asking some 90,000 nonunion workers to pay significantly more for their health plan next year.”
“In his ruling, Vinson criticized Democrats for seeking to have it both ways when it comes to defending the mandate to buy insurance. During the legislative debate, Republicans chastised the proposal as a new tax on the middle class. Obama defended the payment as a penalty and not a tax, but the Justice Department has argued that legally, it’s a tax.”
“A federal judge in Florida on Thursday ruled that challenges to the healthcare reform law’s individual mandate and its Medicaid expansion can proceed. The widely expected ruling does not mean that Florida Northern District Senior Judge Roger Vinson agrees that the law is unconstitutional, only that the arguments against it can’t be dismissed out of hand as the Obama administration had requested.”
“A federal judge on Thursday ruled that a lawsuit against the new health care law brought by 20 states led by Florida can go forward. In a 65-page ruling, the judge rejected the Obama administration’s attempt to have the suit thrown out, arguing that the states had a ‘plausible claim’ to challenge the law’s constitutionality. While U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson dismissed some of the states’ claims, he sided with them when it came to the central challenge to the law — that forcing individuals to purchase health insurance exceeds the government’s authority under the Commerce Clause.”
“Well, Obamacare has barely started taking effect, and the evidence is already rolling in. I hate to say we told them so, but … we told them so. The laws of economics have struck back.”