Maybe Universal Health Care Is Unconstitutional
This is a new one to me. Having to buy health care might not be what the Founding Fathers intended in the Bill of Rights. But that doesn't explain John Hancock at all.
Senators Jim DeMint and John Ensign issued a release stating that he got the senate to vote on the constitutionality of the current health care bill. Specifically there is language in the bill that would incur fines on citizens who have no insurance.
"Forcing every American to purchase a product is absolutely inconsistent with our Constitution and the freedoms our Founding Fathers hoped to protect. This is not at all like car insurance, you can choose not to drive but Americans will have no choice whether to buy government-approved insurance."
This has profusely tickled the delights of Erick Erickson over at RedState: "The federal constitution sets forth the limited powers of the federal government and not one of those powers seems to suggest that the Congress of the United States can compel the citizens of the nation to buy certain products."
The conservative hemisphere has been jumping all over this statement, and the other side hasn't formulated many thoughts on this. Erik Kain at True/Slant has, however, countering Erickson by going to the heart of the problem insurance companies are facing: "Without a mandate, anyone who was healthy could simply not buy insurance until they were sick or injured and then purchase insurance and get full coverage. This distorts the system in obvious ways, and essentially makes it so that nobody would ever pay for insurance until it was needed – defeating the entire point of insurance to begin with."
Well, cross "insurance" off the list of industries in which I'd like to work. That and "health care legislator."
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