Robert A. Levy argues that Obamacare’s mandate to purchase health insurance is not authorized under Congress’s power to “lay and collect taxes.”
Obamacare would offer major financial rewards for couples who live together but avoid marriage — and it’s extreme marginal tax-rates on a marriage’s second income would provide a strong incentive for the lower-earning spouse (most often the woman) to leave the workforce.
If Tennessee’s, Maine’s, and Massachusetts’s ambitious attempts to expand health coverage through taxpayer subsidization are any guide, ObamaCare’s costs would soon spiral out of control.
More than a month’s worth of polling has shown that Americans support repeal of Obamacare by 16 percentage points (56 to 40 percent), with support for repeal being strong across all age and income groups.
A poll of 2,000 doctors shows that nearly 4 out of 5 are less optimistic about health care following Obamacare’s passage, and about two-thirds would consider not taking patients covered by government-run programs.
Medicaid mandates under Obamacare leave states with an unpleasant choice.
Congress originally tried to defend the constitutionality of ObamaCare’s individual mandate (which would require all Americans to buy health insurance) based on its power to regulate interstate commerce, but it has since gotten cold feet and has switched to a defense based on its power to tax. But not buying health care isn’t an aspect of commerce, and a penalty for not buying health care isn’t a tax — and for the Supreme Court to uphold the mandate on either basis would require the Court to allow Congress to go where it has never gone before.
With its stock prices falling as Obamacare’s impact is assessed, Big Pharma may regret spending roughly $100 million in support of the overhaul — but health care innovation could become the bigger casualty.