So once again

[terrell9584]

What in the constitution allows the federal government to force people to buy a product from a private company? What allows this? I'd really like to see it in blunt and incontravertible language because otherwise this "individual mandate" will go to court and will likely be ruled unconstitutional

[leftygolfer]

1. isn't it same as car insurance?

granted, driving a car is optional - but having insurance on that car is not.

[terrell9584]

2. A 2 year old could refute that one

While a it may be implicitly mandatory to own a car to live in many places no one actually forces you to. Therefore, car insurance is simply a condition for availing yourself of a government privilege akin to how signing up for selective service is a condition for availing yourself of the privileges of federal employment and student loans. You can actually not sign up for SS but you will pay a price for that choice. No one forces you to though.


And the other problem with that is that there is no federal law on car insurance. Those laws are all at the state level. And there is nothing in the federal constitution that keeps a state from forcing you to buy a product, or same with localities.


The problem with the insurance mandate federally is that it is federal and that it not only levies from the public a duty for a private interest (which is unconstitutional by multiple provisions in the bill of rights, never mind the rest) but that the tax penalties associated with it are basically tax penalties assessed on people for living in the United States period as a condition of living here.

Once you have American citizenship you have a right to live here and if you call this a tax it can only be called a capitation tax and capitation taxes are illegal at the federal level under the constitution.

[leftygolfer]

3. I'm not smart enough to argue your point but

I doubt any two year old could refute it.

[dflprincess]

26. The other difference with car insurance is that the states that require

only require that you carry liablity so that other drivers are covered should you cause an accident and injure someone else or damage their vehicle. It really is more of a public safety issue.

(Yes, lenders can require comprehensive coverage to protect their interest, but the law does not require that).

[Knight Hawk]

28. Not correct

In florida ,which is a modified "no fault" state ,you DO NOT have to legally carry insurance to protect the other person's bodily injuries.You only are legally required to carry insurance,PIP,to cover your injuries and you must carry insurance to cover any property damage you cause to the other's persons property,crazy but true.

[slackmaster]

4. There is no federal law that requires anyone to buy car insurance

The laws that do that are all state laws.

[Peacetrain]

5. Well lets try this.. you are going to pay for it anyway you look at it

Social Security being the model.. is not a free program.. we pay taxes into it. Our employers are forced to pay into it.

Did you see that bolded word.. FORCED

Now we are a capitalistic socialist society. We want the private sector to run things, but government to be there when huge downturns happen. I am all for that.

So our health care model has been one of private venture.. sans those over 65 and they buy supplementals .

So I am not a bit surprised, that this would be the model this country would use.

What I want to see tweaked in that bill as it goes forward, is a public option to keep those private companies in line.

[Bluenorthwest]

6. You do know that a company can be both private and

also not for profit, don't you? This is what most of our peer nations require of those who provide basic health care and insurance for that care, that they be not for profit enterprises. They are private, non government organizations, from which those who run them make a fine living, but the company is not allowed to make profit on such services.
I wonder why you insist that here, profit must come before health? What is your reasoning for that? You pretend you are speaking about the ownership, but the real point is the structure and objective of that ownership. Why do you insist that profit must be the objective?

[Peacetrain]

7. Prior to 1986 BCBS was listed as a non profit..

BS was an amalgam of I think the lumber industry.. a co-op sort of.. Now you have to look that up..I may have it bass ackwards.. but non profits given time, will become just as corrupt as anything else. My BCBS went up 18% two weeks ago.

What I want from my government is oversight. Public ownership will corrupt just as quickly as private ownership.

I want oversight..

[Bluenorthwest]

9. So your argument is that BCBS, which has been for profit

for 24 years USED to be non profit, and 24 years later they upped your rates? So a for profit company upped your rates, correct? If BCBS is a for profit company, a for profit company upped your rates for profit. Which is why, as I said, no other developed nation forces the purchase of for profit products of of any kind, although several do mandate purchase of private insurance. The oversight goes without saying.
Do you have an example of a currently non profit company gouging you? Because you example does not really prove your point nor does it counter mine. Blue Cross Blue Shield is a for profit company, and has been for longer than many voters have been alive. When they were non profit, they were far better than they are now, in my opinion. You like them better under the for profit system, even with the rate jumps? Back in the day I had BCBS with no co pays, fully funded by my employers via my union. The same deal now costs high premiums, high co pays, deductibles (I never had any deductible) and so forth. Now, not, but someone makes huge profits. Is that really better?
BCBS's changes prove my point rather clearly. Once they went for profit, they went downhill. And costs soared.

[Peacetrain]

10. What is your argument? You do know you are going to pay whether

private or public.

[Peacetrain]

11. I have to get ready for work.. I really really want to continue this discussion

I will be back after 4 this afternoon.. I am bookmarking this thread.

[Beetwasher]

13. That's Why The Medical Loss Ratios, Gov't Approval Of Rate Increase And Non-Profit Options On

The exchanges are very good aspects of the current plan. The exchange(s) MUST include a non-profit option.

These will serve as price controls. If they prove insufficient, they will/can be strenghthened.

It's a start.

[terrell9584]

14. Social security is analagous to single payer

Not at all what we're talking about here and social security taxes are only levied on those who work. They are not technically levied on the person. They are levied on the income. If you don't work you don't pay payroll taxes.

So social security, and medicare and all the other "tax" arguments are also arguments that won't hold water simply because those are all paid directly to the government to pay for direct services provided by the government (in purpose)

[boston bean]

16. That is twisted.

ummm, no!

We want our private sector to run things, but not every fucking thing. And no, I don't think the government should use corporate welfare to bail them out after they've fucked us over. You wanna live through more depressions, keep up that kind of thinking.l

There is no federal law that enforces people to buy a product made by a private entity. NONE.

It doesn't matter that we have private corporations, the federal government has never mandated that we must give our money to a private entity. To the government, yes, but never to a private entity.

[Beetwasher]

8. What Forbids It?

Making sure people have access to health care is "providing for the common welfare" so they are free to "pursue life, liberty and happiness".

How can everyone have access to health care if no one wants to pay for it?

[dave29]

12. +800

.

[terrell9584]

15. Single Payer would be constitutional

As it would be a public system with public money. What is unconstitutional is the federal government forcing citizens to buy a private product. How you can read the constitution and not come to this conclusion I do not know. Many things are ambigious in it. This one is not. The intent is pretty clear and even if you adopt the "living document" idea it doesn't mean that the constitution says the exact opposite of what is in the text and the text is what damns this thing.


I believe everyone should have access to quality health care but I also support the U.S. Constitution and the best way to do it is a single payer system with large tax increases on the rich with very little paid by the working and middle classes. It's the only fair way to do it.

[Beetwasher]

20. So Then Show Me The Article That Forbids It

It's not unconstitutional jus cuz u say it is.

[boston bean]

17. providing for the common welfare with government programs, not for profit private entities

that are already raping and pillaging us financially.

People really should read what common welfare means. The government provides for the common welfare.

[Beetwasher]

21. Nothing More Fundamental To Common Welfare than The health of citizens

And there is nothing in the constitution that would make HCR unconstitutional. Show me the article.

[Lyric]

18. The fact that the government has not been granted any such power?

The Constitution exists to tell the government what its powers are and (in SOME cases, not all) are not. If the Constitution doesn't grant the government a power, then it doesn't HAVE that power. And no, the preamble language about "general welfare" is not legally-binding. That part is prose about goals and reasoning. The rest of it is the legally-binding part. If it's not contained within an Article or Amendment, then it's not a law.

Oddly enough, single-payer would be perfectly fine by Constitutional standards because it doesn't involve the government forcing us to buy a private product. It involves the government forcing us to buy into a public good, which has already passed Constitutional muster many times before. I'd bet the farm that an enforceable mandate to purchase a private product is smacked down by the SCOTUS, though. If they make the mandate toothless and unenforceable, then it might make it past the judicial review process because nobody will have been harmed by it--therefore nobody will have any actual standing to bring a case against it.

[Beetwasher]

19. Bullshit

It's not forbidden therefore not unconstitutional. Unless a court decides it as such.

Perhaps u think federal food safety standards are also unconstitutional? Nothing granting that power either.

[Vattel]

24. well, federal food safety standards

can be squeezed into the commerce clause. Perhaps mandated health insurance can be squeezed into that clause too, but that would be quite a stretch.

[Beetwasher]

25. Quite A Stretch Indeed

To say it's unconstitutional. How about federal regs on the environment? Nothing in the constitution granting that specific power. I could go on and on. Does the constitution need to grant specific powers for every possible action? The argument is silly.

[Vattel]

27. As long as the specific power falls within the scope

of one of the general powers that are enumerated in the Constitution, it does not have to be explicitly mentioned to be granted. But the federal government only has the powers that are granted to it in the Constitution. And it's not obvious that it has the one in question. Can you predict what SCOTUS will say about this one?

[Beetwasher]

29. Providing for general welfare should cover it

and since no one is actually being forced to do anything it's moot. Exchanges will have non-profit options and you can always opt out and pay the tax instead, that is if your not already going to be covered by some other aspect of the plan.

[Vattel]

31. Providing for the general welfare won't do it.

As James Madison wrote in Federalist 41:

"Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,'' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare.

''But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars."

[boppers]

22. Nothing in the bills requires purchasing from a private company.

You can purchase from a non-profit co-op, or pay the annual health tax.

[phleshdef]

23. Good thing the bill doesn't require it. You can opt to pay a tax penalty instead.

[demwing]

30. It will pass, just as there is a mandate to pay into Social Security

you make it a tax on income. It will come directly out of your paycheck. Those that do not have jobs, or other income sources, would qualify for Government subsidies anyway.

Easy breezy.

On edit - it was stated up thread that "The problem with the insurance mandate federally is that it is federal and that it not only levies from the public a duty for a private interest (which is unconstitutional by multiple provisions in the bill of rights, never mind the rest)"

This actually gives me a ray of hope that the public option can be pried into this mess in order to make it constitutional.