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The rising constitutional tide against the individual mandate
Two short but informative articles on the important appeals court decision last week declaring the individual mandate in the health care law unconstitutional are by Philip Klein in The Washington Examiner and Betsy McCaughey in the New York Post. Both show how the judges not only rejected, but exposed as baseless and fraudulent, the Obama administration’s key arguments as to how the Commerce Clause grants Congress the power to compel persons to purchase private medical insurance.
This is a wonderful development, and makes it even more likely that this horrible law will be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. At the same time, however, that extremely welcome event would alter certain political calculations that have been much discussed at this site. I have been saying since 2010 that the repeal of Obamacare is of such transcendent urgency that I will vote for any Republican nominee in 2012 who is pledged to repeal it, no matter how much I may overall disapprove of him or her; thus I am committed to vote for Palin, Perry, Romney, Gingrich, etc. if any of them is the GOP standard bearer. But if Obamacare is thrown out by the Supreme Court prior to the 2012 election, repeal of the law will cease to be absolutely necessary, as will the election of an otherwise undesirable Republican as president to sign the repeal. Email entry |