Eh?! Our Founding Fathers mandated medical insurance! So Obamacare is constitutional after all!!

[Poll_Blind]

8. There's a reason this argument didn't come up from either side or the Justices during the hearing:

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