Fix Health Care Policy

Obamacare Debate Comes to Heritage

In an opinion piece over the weekend, Washington Post Supreme Court reporter Robert Barnes posits that the government may be able to “lure” eight of the nine justices to uphold the Affordable Care Act. Barnes asserts that even conservative bastion Antonin Scalia might agree with the government that Congress’s power to regulate commerce among the states extends to compelling people to purchase inflated health insurance policies.

As proof of this, Barnes points to the High Court’s 2005 decision in Gonzales v. Raich. Concurring with the majority opinion to uphold a law regulating home-grown marijuana, Scalia noted that the marijuana was “never more than an instant from the interstate market,” yet this logic cannot extend to Congress’s unprecedented attempt to force people into the health insurance market. Even though every American may be “potentially never more than an instant” from needing health care, there is a fundamental difference between procuring a commodity sold in interstate commerce and sitting at home and doing nothing.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: health insurance policies, Individual Mandate, ObamaCare, Supreme Court justices