Reply #49: I am not a lawyer, but I did just take a course in Constitutional Law.

[backscatter712]

And IMHO, the individual mandate is perfectly constitutional.

Cases to point out: Wickard v. Filburn (1942). This was a case where a an Ohio farmer, Filburn, was mandated by the government to comply with wheat allotments. He was told to only grow so many acres of wheat, but he decided to grow more, and got busted. Even though he was growing the wheat for his own use only, never sold it or had any intention to sell it, the Supreme Court ruled that the government had the power to impose allotments, citing what became known as the Cumulative Effects doctrine. What this means is that if everyone did what Filburn did, it would have cumulative effects upon the nation's economy, causing a drop in the price of wheat that the government considered undesirable, therefore, the government had the power to enact such regulation using the Commerce Clause in the Constitution.

Similarly, allowing people to opt out of buying health insurance would have cumulative effects upon the economy, which would do things like driving up health care and insurance costs, so therefore, the federal government can use its Commerce Clause power and mandate that people buy health insurance.

A more recent case, that had the input of some of the current bunch of strict constructionist asshole on the SCOTUS is U.S. v. Lopez. That case brought about a 3-part test, written by Rehnquist, which limited the use of the Commerce Clause somewhat, and stated that in order for the Commerce Clause to be used, the thing being regulated had to be a channel of commerce, an instrumentality of commerce, or an economic activity related to commerce. Insurance definitely counts as an economic activity with a substantial effect on interstate commerce - insurance companies funnel around billions of dollars, paying for medical procedures, imposing rules and restrictions upon medical providers in order to receive compensation for services, affecting prices, etc. etc. etc. How can this not be interstate commerce?