Twisting the Constitution

Posted by John LaPlante in Individual Mandates on Dec 14th, 2009 | no responses

A small portion of the U.S. Constitution has been twisted so that it serves as a cover for rather than a limit on federal power.

The Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy and Michael F. Cannon give a quick review of the interstate commerce clause: “Instead of serving as a shield against states that attempt to interfere with interstate commerce, the commerce power today has become a sword that the federal government wields in pursuit of a boundless array of socio-economic programs.”

Even so, an individual mandate is not constitutional, and at the least, it would violate the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which gives states, not the central government, the power to regulate insurance.

“If Congress were interested in using the commerce clause for its intended purpose, we would be debating the Health Care Choice Act, which would permit the interstate purchase of individual health policies. The Democrats, however, bottled up that bill in committee.”

Levy and Cannon also make an interesting point about the would-be tax for not having insurance. It’s not an income tax, nor is it an excise tax. Instead it is a “direct tax,” which “requires that such taxes be apportioned among the states according to their population, as determined by the census.”

In other words, not only is the requirement to buy insurance unconstitutional, so is the means that Sen. Harry Reid (D-Neva.) has chosen to punish non-compliance.