Let me again take this opportunity to apologize for the State of Alabama.

Got a "survey" call from Americans for Prosperity yesterday asking me if I opposed the "unconstitutional government takeover" of the healthcare industry. I said No and they hung up.

If it really starts to look like HRC will pass and become the law of the land, what will Sessions and company do? They have spent so much time and energy misleading their constituents and whipping them into a froth over this that they cannot simply acquiesce.

So what will they do? The next "logical" step for them is to call for armed insurrection and the violent overthrow of the government.

I wonder how their insurance overlords view this because the last insurance mandate, auto, was a republican wet dream.

The real question is will they go pseudo-Gault and forgo their own insurance to spite the commie loving nazi party ?

Seems to me that this argument should be made by people without insurance who don't want insurance, not the ass clowns with some of the countries best insured.

...Or they could forgo the mandate and leave it like auto insurance in which the states decide if they want mandates and like auto insurance, the Fed will withhold highway money if they don't. But in this case they could with hold medical funds.

There are no consequences for their lies and hypocrisy. It isn't as though they "claimed to have invented the internet," the (false) claim which the MSM couldn't mock enough.

IOKIYAR!

I'm not so certain that Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito would find Session's argument absurd. But then, Ruth Marcus might well have been thinking about them as well when she talked about misrepresentations.

they cannot simply acquiesce.
So what will they do?

I'm not so sure. See (title) Stimulus Bill 2009, (chapter) Republicans taking credit for.

The fact that such arguments are nonsensical doesn't mean that the current Supreme Court won't buy them. The left needs to make judicial appointments more of a priority in the media and in campaigns. People don't know what Republican appointees have, can and will do. They should.

That the reform proposal is unconstitutional is a ridiculous claim, but like "oh well", I have no faith in the sanity of the conservative members of the US Supreme Court. They are barely distinguishable from the tenthers and birthers.

Don't expect any accountability from the Village for this flip flopping, they will just accept what these Senators are saying at face value as if they never announced a differing opinion in their lives (much less a month ago).

Wait - they think HCR is unconstitutional, yet they put forward their own plan, didn't they? So what they're saying is - YOUR plan is unconstitutional but OURS isn't? Or are they admitting they submitted their plan in bad faith?

OK, sorry, silly questions.

"You have to wonder: Are the Republican arguments against the bill so weak that they have to resort to these misrepresentations and distortions?"

Well, no, you don't have to wonder. The Republican arguments against the bill are>so weak that they have to resort to these misrepresentations and distortions. That's been clear for months. Is Marcus just noticing that? (rhetorical question)

Two other people who have covered this very well are two columnists at FindLaw -- I know, most of you know of their columns only check out John Dean, but most of the writers there are excellent -- Neil Buchanan and Michael Dorf. Dorf, who also has his own blog, Dorf on Law -- has just done a two-part series on this specific question.

If you believe that the Constitution gives Congress the power to require Americans to purchase health insurance policies, then wouldn't it also have to the power to require Americans to buy only GM autos, now that it is under government control, because it would help keep UAW workers employed?

If not, what's the difference between the two?

Individual mandates are not taxes, though the impact is the same and unlike auto insurance or opening a business, one does not have an option for breathing- what's next- an individual mandate to pay for you own defense directed at Boeing or Blackwater for two thousand dollars? The reason they are analogized as taxes is precisely to get constitutional cover but though individual mandates may be politicized as taxes in reality they are not-see Bob Sommerby. In law semantics often are the crux of a decision and though precedent may support the constitutionality of this, I would not bet my house.

A question Ruth Marcus raised the other day continues to ring true: "You have to wonder: Are the Republican arguments against the bill so weak that they have to resort to these misrepresentations and distortions?"

The response to Marcus should be: "Well, gee Ruth, perhaps since you work at a major daily newspaper with access to extensive resources to gather information, you could put down your mocha latte for ten minutes, do your fucking job and actually find out. Now, I know that research and journalism require actual "work," something you're not accustomed to in the Village, but try it sometime. Instead of "wondering," you might actually learn something instead of being a disgrace to your profession."

The woman is clueless!

Every one of these arguments is stupid and specious.

Why don't they mandate dental floss to protect against 'relying on emergency services'?

Why don't they mandate wearing a helmet to protect the public from hail?

Why don't they mandate wearing kevlar to protect against drunk drivers?

Why don't they mandate air bags at the foot of every staircase?

None of the analogies presented hold water. You do not actually need to own a business, you do not need to own a car, you do not need to employ anyone,

but you cannot avoid existing. A mandate is as if to say your existence is an inherent threat to everyone else.

This is so blatantly anti-social it sounds like something Republicans would have come up with.

can the government require to do what we think is in your best interest if you don't think it's in your best interest?

Well, gosh, Jeffy, that's a good question. I don't like having to wear a seat belt when I drive or a helmet when I ride, but I'll get ticketed if I don't. Can you see about getting rid of those laws, too? Of course, the insurance companies won't like it if you do, so you'll be losing their support in your next campaign, but I'm sure that a "principled" fellow like yourself will do the right thing.

Why don't they mandate little rubber balls on the tines of forks?

If they are so concerned about how people without health insurance are a threat to their neighbors why do they allow internal combustion engines that spew out billions of carcinogenic chemicals?

Why isn't sunblock mandatory?

Why do they allow just lousy shoes and sandals that just ruin your feet?

Why are pools legal?

And, dear god, let's not talk about fire arms, no, that would be wrong.

I think you are mistaken about this. None of the examples you cited apply to individual citizens. In fact there is a provision that individual citizens cannot be deprived of property without due process. Some years ago the SCOTUS determined that income is property.
The Feds can tax. The Feds can require the several states to comply with legislation passed by congress. There is no provision for the Feds to mandate individual citizens to purchase anything from private industry. They can still put you in prison for failure to pay your bills, but not without "due process".

I also don't understand what the point of purchasing from a public program could be. Buying stamps from the Post Office is a per-use thing and I do not actually have to do that, it's a convenience.

The mandate is a permanent requirement, a program that is always in place, so what is the point of causing one to intentionally buy it just to provide a pretense of competition?

The same amount of 'competition' would happen if it were simply present for everyone without harassment and paid for through general taxes.

If it were a 1% sales tax everyone would still be paying for it every time money changed hands, it wouldn't be free and it would be paid for.

If Steve's second paragraph accurately reflects the best "legal reasoning" in support of an individual mandate, then you might well forget about it passing Constitutional muster because none of it stands up to any scrutiny at all.

Echoing off of Raoul's points, an individual mandate is in no way similar to a tax or any other economic regulation. Moreover, the "obvious analogue" to the requirement of having auto insurance is anything but. The state can require you to obtain liability insurance for the protection of others who may become injured because of the use of your vehicle on the public roads. But that's not the same thing as requiring you to obtain health insurance. The proper analogy would be if the state had the power to require you to have physical damage coverage to protect your own car from damage. I'm surprised that our Constitutional scholar in chief would actually make such a stupid comparison and that there is no one in the press with the balls to call him out on it.

Finally, with respect to the Americans with Disabilities Act; first off, it only applies to those who are engaged in interstate commerce, which is expressly part of Congress' constitutional authority. However, I doubt that even Steve would argue that Congress has the power to require every American homeowner to make their houses handicapped accessible, or impose a fine on them for not doing so, simply because he thinks it a really good idea for them to do so.

But I could be wrong.

From John Shumaker at Iowa Rapid Response:

"I never met a scam, a Bankster Bailout, a Big Pharma Hand Out, an Insurance Company Kick Back, a loaded Farm Pork Barrel bill, an off shore tax haven hide out, a Somalia "Family" owned lackey dictator, a Derivative scheme, a Federal Reserve Ayn Rand roll back of financial regulations, a home foreclosure I didn't like" ~ The Grasster

Eloquent and succinct.

Chicousel @ 2:39 PM -

"...An individual mandate is in no way similar to a tax or any other economic regulation."
False. The requirement for auto insurance is, plain and simply, an economic requirement. The insurance is there to prevent an economic hardship on the accident victim as well as on those who provide any medical services to that victim. The income tax is an individual mandate to pay a certain proportion of one's income; the requirement is not on your employer to pay the tax, it is on you. Yet another example of your inability to reason.

"The state can require you to obtain liability insurance for the protection of others..."
True. And that is what the individual mandate does; it protects me from having to pay the health care costs of uninsured people via higher taxes or increased premiums. Duh!

"But I could be wrong."
Finally, we agree on something!

That's like saying your taxes pay for the police care costs to protect you from people who can't afford guards to keep them from hitting you.