Several points, Lafayette:

1.  Neither the UK nor France has anything resembling Obamacare’s mandate to purchase insurance from private insurers.

2.  Germany does, but presumably its government is not Constitutionally limited as ours is in this area.

3.  Our Constitution specifically limits what the federal government can do, reserving all other permissible legislation for the individual states (which is why Massachusetts could mandate this but the federal government may arguably not be able to).

4.  One thing the federal government CAN do is collect taxes and use them (among other things) to “provide for… the general Welfare of the United States”.  Thus existing Medicare and Medicare for All are Constitutionally legal even while an individual mandate (at the federal level) to purchase private insurance may not be.

5.  Your selection of fire protection as an example is interesting.  A while ago local firefighters in a Southern town stood by while someone’s house burned to the ground (incinerating their pets) - because that homeowner had not paid them to protect it.  The town had no community fire department:  it was run privately, and they were on the scene in order to protect the neighbor’s house if necessary, since the neighbor HAD paid them to.  The federal government has never felt that it needed to provide this service (though possibly it Constitutionally could), and in this case the local authorities obviously didn’t feel that they had to either.  It is clearly not considered anything like a ‘birthright’ (nor, obviously, has health care ever been so considered, much as some people might LIKE it to be).

6.  The federal government also has never been in the police business at the local level (in part because most law is local and peculiar to individual states or even communities).  So this is clearly not considered a ‘birthright’ either, at least at the federal level.

7.  For that matter even national defense isn’t really a ‘birthright’:  it’s just something for which the federal government IS explicitly responsible.

8.  The reason why people shouldn’t consider ANYTHING their ‘birthright’ is simple:  all such ‘rights’ are social contracts, nothing more, nothing less.  If a nation decides something is a ‘right’, then, by George, it is.  If not, it’s not (and people who aren’t happy with that situation at least usually have the freedom to try to change it or seek another country more to their liking to reside in).

9.  The bottom line is that I’m with the conservatives on this one:  I believe that universally mandating such purchases from private insurers simply isn’t Constitutional (as it requires stretching the already severely-stretched Commerce Clause completely beyond recognition).  For the Court to ALLOW the mandate to stand would (IMO, obviously) be not only legislating from the bench but amending the Constitution therefrom.

Just make my own position clear, I firmly believe that in a nation as wealthy as ours is good health-care SHOULD be guaranteed for all and that we SHOULD extend Medicare to cover everyone as a minimal step in achieving this within Constitutional bounds - but that’s just my opinion, and I’m not so self-centered as to consider it any kind of absolute truth.  Rather, I work at convincing others that it makes practical sense so that it may, hopefully sooner rather than later, become the law of the land.

(By the way, I also have no respect for the Court as currently constituted and wholly agree that they have violated their oaths frequently:  I just see this particular issue as being one of those “a stopped clock is still right twice a day” cases.)

THE SUPREME COURT’S REMIT

By requiring everyone to buy health insurance, it would create a pool of policyholders big enough to support policies for low- and middle-income people, even those with prior medical conditions.

And I’ll bet that BB heard no arguments (amicus juris) from a European country – say Britain or France or Germany – where the individual mandate was never seen to violate any of its Constitutional conventions – despite the fact that Britain does not have a constitution.

The constitution was a document written almost solely for two purposes. To create a Congress (thus imparting upon that representative legislature certain powers distinct from those of the new states and ex-colonies) and assuring that a separation of powers between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches should permit that no Monarch ever rule over America. (Which is an idea imported from France, first proposed by a certain Montesquieu).

The argumentation that I might cite would state clearly that the government is indeed, with the consent of the Legislature, able to apply the Collective Mandate in order to assure certain services to the public (meaning uniform access to those services) that would otherwise not happen.

That universality in Health Care was tantamount to a birthright, as would be Defense or Policing or Firefighting or other Emergency Services. And that these Public Services were not like selling broccoli. (What a stupid metaphor!)

How is it that the US is going through the present Supreme Court machination? Because the Supreme Court – all unelected and nominated to their posts – is legislating from the bench. This matter should never have even reached that high court.

Do we sell Emergency Firefighting services like broccoli? Or is National Defense of our houses and homes bought like broccoli from the local retail distributor?

And why should Public Services as important as Health Care and Primary/Secondary/Tertiary Education not be considered tantamount (also) to “birthrights”? That is, services that each citizen has the right to expect of its local, state and national governments.

This matter should never have been accepted for Supreme Court review. By doing so, it is clearly legislating from the bench, which is clearly not its prerogative.

With a Supercilious Supreme Court interfering in the matter of what legislatures decide that which is best and not good for the American public, the five conservatives of this Supreme Court have stepped beyond the court’s remit time and time again. Enough is enough.

Off with their heads!

By Michael, March 30 at 9:34 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I think the court will rule in favor of Obamacare, to do otherwise is to open the door to single payer.

I think your naivete is showing. If I were a betting man I would bet every cent I had that the mandate will be struck down 5-4. That these Supremes would fear single payer is simply silliness.

They know, perhaps better than most, that we live in a fascist state, our governance is ruled by CEO’s and CFO’s, our politicians are wholly owned corporate stooges, living from campaign check to campaign check and our two party system is a sham and a fraud.

“you are required to purchase flood insurance”.  False.  LENDERS require you to have it; the law does not.

The rest is just as false; car insurance is a fake equivalent, standard DNC propaganda like the article itself, because driving is optional, legally a “privilege”; living isn’t, and neither is getting sick.

The article is propaganda because it uses the (valuable, heart-tugging) clinic to defend the Mandate, even though there’s no connection.  Knocking down the Medicaid extension, which would be legally questionable, would hurt the clinic; but it’s irrelevant to the real question, the constitutionality of the Mandate.  The clinic’s clients are too poor to afford medical insurance, so they’d be paying the penalty instead - and be even poorer.

but it is not only healthcare for all but also peace, nutrition, clean air/water, equal
justice, governing for all.

The nub of the hub is will the US Supreme Justices’s decision be a “judicial
one” or a “political one”?

  My guess given its make up it will be a toss up. Que sera sera.

“I think the court will rule in favor of Obamacare, to do otherwise is to open the door to single payer. “

I agree with Michael’s statement above; in a way this who thing is a kind of Kabuki theater misleading us into fighting for ObamaCare (a Insurance Company bail-out thinly disguised as Health Care reform).

The individual Mandate like the “Pay Roll Tax Holiday” were both dreamed up in the basement of the Heritage Foundation. Naomi Klein pointed out this tactic in her book “the shock doctrine” of slipping in unpopular ideas in times of crisis. Aside from the oblivious self inflicted economic crisis there is also the “shock” to about 40% of White America that a Black man was actually elected president. Ironically, this “Trojan horse” (Obama) seems to be working to push through all of the old Heritage Foundation ideas while his Republican counter parts “pretend” to resist.

And I hope the pundits are right, Bill.

The flaw in your reasoning is that Obamacare is not the ONLY solution to the problems you cite.  Obamacare is not a GOOD solution either (it enshrines bloated private insurers in our national infrastructure, fails to control costs much at all, and even by 2019 is projected to leave well over 20 million of us STILL uncovered by insurance - not to mention NEVER covering many real necessities like dental, long-term, and some psychiatric care).  In fact, given the way it allows costs to continue to escalate it can be reasonably argued that Obamacare is no solution at all, because even within its 10-year CBO projections its cost will rise sufficiently for its coverage and/or subsidies to be drastically curtailed.

Let’s hope it dies an early death so that we can get back to working on REAL reform.

Public liability is the white elephant in the discussion. If the risk is yours and yours alone then insurance is an option. If by refusing to insure against a risk you transfer the liability to the public then the state is behooved to force you to buy insurance.

The textbook example of an industry escaping this cost of doing business is nuclear power.

With regard to public health the public liability presented by America’s uninsured is not isolated in individual states or regions. It is national and therefore the Congress is legislating within its constitutional mandate when it compells the purchase of health insurance. For countries in which a public liability in this context is acknowledged then health insurance must ultimately be a public national project and residents must be compelled to participante. It won’t deliver optimal impact on the treasury and on the quality of care without the mandate.

As Scalia has explored, Americans could decide that it’s not a problem for the uninsured to suffer. The US has, perhaps from Scalia’s perspective, the misfortune of being heavily influenced by western, Judeo-Christian traditions in which the individual belongs to a community which constitutes itself politically and makes the pretense of claiming responsibility for members of the community and extending to them various rights.

A government can enact a service such as health care , as long as its not for profit. Once you add profit to the cost its coercion. Single payer is the only democratic way to impliment universal health care.

Many here feel that Medicare for all may be the solution.  I would disagree.  While it’s rarely discussed (most are simply unaware), Medicare part B faces unfunded liabilities in the neighborhood of $36.4 trillion, or approximately $311,000 per household according to 2009 Medicare Trustees Report.

The underlying mission of Medicare is terrific.  I support what Medicare attempts to address, however, the machinations is obviously, deeply, flawed and must be addressed.  Expanding Medicare for all, in it’s current form, is no solution at all.

Questions for Mr. Boyarsky:

  Who mandated that every driver carry car insurance?

  who mandated that every physician can practice only after meeting
certain requirements?

  who mandated that one can only vote after reaching a certain age?

  who mandates that a citizen must pay taxes?

  who mandates that a citizen must kill or be killed in defending his/her
country?

  who mandated that a “corporation” is a person or persons?

  who in the end is responsible for protecting society/its citizens from a
potential “plague” or a tsunami?

File this under not getting it right the first time. If Obama hadn’t been so keen to run from Medicare For All, we wouldn’t be here today. Then he had the hubris to say it’s the mandate or nothing. He royally deserves to lose this case and the presidency for selling-out his base, lying, and moving so far to the right, I frankly don’t see much difference between him and the Ken Doll. I will vote down ticket this time. The presidency I will leave to God.

nannies, car/window washers, housekeepers, laborers are waiting for the system
to once again come down on their heads.
no, do not wait for justices to decide people’s fate or justice for the EIGHTY
PERCENT—it has already been decided by THE SYSTEM.
overwhelming number of justices are not billionaires or even millionaires; thus,
they’ll never be allowed to decide anything that’s of even some import let alone
providing healthcare for all americans, cessation of warfare, privatization of public
resources/armed forces, weapons manufacture, militarization of airspace, etc.

I’m not a very sophisticated and thoroughly knowledgeable person, but I’m pretty sound on the important basic principles regarding empathetic response to differences, on practical negotiating of problems, and on an overall understanding of the possibilities of human nature, given half a chance at forging the essentials of patience, empathy, and fairness in human relationships.
  Every day becomes sadder as I learn more and more about how far short our government is falling in caring for its own people and for others from vastly different nations and cultures. I’m appalled at government decisions that are routinely based on ignorance, mendacity or shortsightedness, time after time after time. 
  I know I am far from alone in my disappointment. While I am eager to do something to improve any number of situations crying out for help, I feel helpless, and discouraged by the weight of overwhelming surveillance, suspicion and blind power that militates against citizen freedom to create solutions and to act.
  I am torn and worried about ultimate outcomes of so many difficult problems accumulating without any apparent awareness from government.  It seems not to know that it is destroying itself at the same time it is destroying ux. The ultitmate outcome of so many distresses not being met, especially where obvious improvements would be relatively easy to achieve, is becoming exponentially harmful. Yet proper legislative, judicial and administrative action based on attention to the urgent needs of the most deprived. is easily within possibility, given a foundation of rational, humane priorities. 
  I still keep thinking that improvement must and will come from a government more sensitive and attentive to the needs of its majorities.  I still keep hoping that some message of healing and some enthusiasm for making a more peaceful and just world possible will arise from the collective heart and mind of The American People, both in and out of government—some cooperative action to relieve an overwhelming amount of ignorance and pain will surely emerge. I pray that emergence will be brought about through peaceful means. I would hate to see us become another Serbia.