If Health Insurance Mandates Are Unconstitutional, Why Did the Founding Fathers Back Them?

Damn commies - all of them; so says nut-head Rep. Allen West.

because you're exempt if you don't make enough income, the penalty for not getting health insurance is a tax on income, plain and simple. you only pay the "penalty" if you're income is above a certain amount.

imagine if, having nothing to do with health insurance, said "anyone who has income above certain threshold must pay an additional tax of $95 in 2014; anyone with income below that threshold is not subject to the tax". that's OBVIOUSLY constitutional. a very simple tax on income. now suppose we add in a full credit of $95 for anyone subject to that additional tax who gets qualifying health insurance. well that's obviously constitutional as well. that sort of thing has been done many times with many products. energy-efficient windows and hybrid cars, just as a couple examples.

so how is the health insurance mandate constitutionally different?

they avoided the "additional income tax" terminology. PERIOD. they likely figured that calling it a penalty for not buying insurance was less politically problematic than calling it an additional income tax, but constitutionally, it doesn't matter what they call it.

note also there's nothing unconstitutional about taxing the poor at a 99% rate and making the rich exempt.

a lot of people think "unconstitutional" and "bad law" are the same thing, but they're not.

there's PLENTY of room for terrible law that's perfectly constitutional.

Especially if it happened before a Obama is allowed to enact a sensible single-payer medical system. I guess that's why the NRA is pushing so hard for more gun violence while our health care system is still nonfunctioning for all but the rich. The NRA knows that gun violence will become much less effective when hospitals are no longer allowed to devastate families economically because they're a victim.

I honestly don't see how we are making anything more affordable. We are just adding more demand to the system with no cost controls.

you aren't being ordered to pay higher taxes to the government....you are being ordered to buy a product from a private corporation

there is neither and order nor a requirement to buy anything from anyone. in particular, there's no requirement at all if you don't make enough income.

there is a penalty on your income tax if you both (a) make sufficient income and (b) do not have qualifying health insurance.

if you make enough income, you do not have to buy insurance AT ALL. you merely have to pay the "penalty", which is in fact a further tax on income.

how they phrase it is completely beside the point. it's 100% mathematically, legally, and constitutionally equivalent to an income tax with a 100% credit for buying qualifying health insurance.


saying "they're making you buy insurance, or else pay more on your income tax" is identical to saying "they're making you pay more on your income tax, or else buy insurance".

is because it would have been laughed out of court.

The requirement for seaman to support a fund that provided hospital care regulated ACTIVITY. You don't like the requirement, don't become a seaman. In my business I have to buy liability insurance, pay into workers comp, and comply with a pile of government-mandated requirements. If I don't like the requirements, I don't have to run a business.

The ACA mandate outlaws INACTIVITY--my decision to forego health insutance.

It's as lame as the auto insurance argument.

Under this trainwreck of thought I suppose the professor would argue in favor of reinstating the Alien and Sedition Act.

selling such policies. So what went on then was not at all analogous. Accident Insurance was first offered for purchase in the US in 1850.
Actual medical expense insurance did not come until the 20th Century. So the Founders could not support a mandate to purchase for profit products from an industry that would not exist for many, many years to come. The Seamen were required to create and fund a hospital for their own use, they were not mandated to purchase health insurance, as there was no such thing.

you're against the mandate or the whole ACA?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Act_for_the_relief_of_sick_and_disabled_seamen



In exchange for 20 cents per month, the sailors were indemnified for medical treatment. That's insurance.

Social Security would be a closer equivalent, non-profit and to the government.

That's a major difference because government is the agent of the people, for profit "health" insurance corporations are not.

Indeed for profit "health" insurance corporations' ultimate loyalty lies to themselves and their best financial interests are diametrically opposed to that of the peoples' good health or the "general welfare."

Came across this while researching old bibles (this is from loc.gov) and thought it interesting

Aitken's Bible Endorsed by Congress

The war with Britain cut off the supply of Bibles to the United States with the result that on Sept. 11, 1777, Congress instructed its Committee of Commerce to import 20,000 Bibles from "Scotland, Holland or elsewhere." On January 21, 1781, Philadelphia printer Robert Aitken (1734-1802) petitioned Congress to officially sanction a publication of the Old and New Testament which he was preparing at his own expense. Congress "highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion . . . in this country, and . . . they recommend this edition of the bible to the inhabitants of the United States." This resolution was a result of Aitken's successful accomplishment of his project.

Aitken's Bible
Aitken published Congress's recommendation of September 1782 and related documents (Item 115) as an imprimatur on the two pages following his title page. Aitken's Bible, published under Congressional patronage, was the first English language Bible published on the North American continent.

Northwest Ordinance
In the summer of 1787 Congress revisited the issue of religion in the new western territories and passed, July 13, 1787, the famous Northwest Ordinance. Article 3 of the Ordinance contained the following language: "Religion, Morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, Schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged." Scholars have been puzzled that, having declared religion and morality indispensable to good government, Congress did not, like some of the state governments that had written similar declarations into their constitutions, give financial assistance to the churches in the West.

Morality in the Navy
Congress particularly feared the navy as a source of moral corruption and demanded that skippers of American ships make their men behave. The first article in Rules and Regulations of the Navy (below), adopted on November 28, 1775, ordered all commanders "to be very vigilant . . . to discountenance and suppress all dissolute, immoral and disorderly practices." The second article required those same commanders "to take care, that divine services be performed twice a day on board, and a sermon preached on Sundays." Article 3 prescribed punishments for swearers and blasphemers: officers were to be fined and common sailors were to be forced "to wear a wooden collar or some other shameful badge of distinction."

Morality in the Army
Congress was apprehensive about the moral condition of the American army and navy and took steps to see that Christian morality prevailed in both organizations. In the Articles of War, seen below, governing the conduct of the Continental Army (seen above) (adopted, June 30, 1775; revised, September 20, 1776), Congress devoted three of the four articles in the first section to the religious nurture of the troops. Article 2 "earnestly recommended to all officers and soldiers to attend divine services." Punishment was prescribed for those who behaved "indecently or irreverently" in churches, including courts-martial, fines and imprisonments. Chaplains who deserted their troops were to be court-martialed.

Christianizing the Delawares
In this resolution, Congress makes public lands available to a group for religious purposes. Responding to a plea from Bishop John Ettwein (1721-1802), Congress voted that 10,000 acres on the Muskingum River in the present state of Ohio "be set apart and the property thereof be vested in the Moravian Brethren . . . or a society of the said Brethren for civilizing the Indians and promoting Christianity." The Delaware Indians were the intended beneficiaries of this Congressional resolution.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel04.html

Framers in requiring insurance was unConstitutional.

And the administration should also push a law that requires everyone to buy firearms.

It's specious.

The only thing in that article that's genuinely germane to the situation is the 1792 statute requiring able-bodied men to purchase firearms. That's it.

That was never federally enforced.

Virginia v. Sebelius is specifically about whether individuals can be compelled to actively participate in interstate commerce when they might not have participated in it at all. I'm not even sure the presumption of whether healthcare of an uninsured person defacto translates into interstate commerce has been settled.

I think professor Elhauge is stretching the point into a generality to make his case to a public audience when such a thing would have been drummed out of a presentation to the Court.

PB

I am shocked, shocked that lying is going on.

The first 100 years of the republic saw extremely tight regulations on the chartering of any corporation. Most corporations chartered in those times only enjoyed a limited amount of time of existence, and nearly all of them had their activities strictly regulated on where they can operate and how and even how they booked profits. For instance, the corporation that was chartered to build the Eerie Canal went out of existence the moment it was finished. Once the canal was completed, it became a matter of the state of New York as far as running and regulating activity on that canal.

The level of distrust of corporate power drew its roots primarily from the confrontation between the Colonies and British Parliament. Parliament, after much lobbying, had granted a legal monopoly to one called the British East India Company to sell tea to the Colonies at whatever price the company could get away with. The Founders of the republic remembered this bitter lesson and would never be so comfortable with corporations until the day they died, and they saw fit to pass regulations curtailing corporate power in the early days of the Republic.