The Health Insurance Mandate: Why Constitutionality Matters

As you know, this blog has explored several ways whereby the proposed mandate that everyone obtain health insurance is unconstitutional.  Ignoring entirely the advice of this blog, the Senate Finance Committee reported out a bill that included a mandate, albeit a watered-down one.  In fact, it appears that any bill that will be voted on [...]

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The Health Insurance Mandate: Is It Involuntary Servitude?*

In an earlier post, I explored whether the Obama health insurance mandate was constitutional in a positive sense — is the federal government empowered to take this action?  But through the very interesting debate that resulted from that post, it occurred to me that there is a second question that needs to be asked.  Does [...]

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The Health Insurance Mandate: A Policy in Search of a Power

The federal government has three ways it can obtain a law-abiding American’s property:
1.  It can tax you.  Taxation is the power of the government to force transfers of cash from owners to itself.  It is a broad power, expressly stated in the Constitution:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and [...]

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Five Necessary Amendments, Part One

With the cap-and-trade bill passing the House, Obama’s health care plan gaining heft (at least in pages, if not in votes), and our nation’s balance sheet spurting more red ink than a B-grade horror movie, it’s time to ponder how fundamentally our system has failed us.
Since the advent of the New Deal and the attendant [...]

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