Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
If mandated car insurance is constitutional because you can choose not to own a car
This is making an assumption on what makes a car insurance mandate constitutional. It could be that it would be constitutional regardless depending on the arguments.
It's the common comparison made when looking at the commerce clause angle of the issue. It's probably the best single case to compare to since it deals fundamentally with the same thing (mandating that people purchase some form of insurance).
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Here's a rundown of the
most likely arguments to be made for the law being constitutional. Note that I'm not looking to debate any of these arguments -- I'll leave that for the lawyers -- but none of them hinge on automobile insurance.
Gee Joph. I'm sure an article in which the opening line says "Those opposing health care reform are increasingly relying on an argument that has no legal merit: that the health care reform legislation would be unconstitutional." is surely going to be an unbiased and reasonable assessment of the constitutional facts at hand. Forgive me if I take that writer's opinion with a huge grain of salt, and don't just blindly accept his own assumptions. But for the sake of hilarity:
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Klukowski’s argument is flawed because the Supreme Court never has said that the commerce power is limited to regulating those who are engaged in commercial activity.
I'm pretty sure this is just flat out wrong. Don't feel like scouring SCOTUS decisions right now, but the commerce clause is *always* presented in the context of someone engaged in an activity that affects commerce. Arguing otherwise is silly since it could be argued that *everyone* is commerce. Even the authors examples are just plain bad:
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The court has said that Congress can use its commerce power to forbid hotels and restaurants from discriminating based on race, even though their conduct was refusing to engage in commercial activity.
But they engaged in the commercial activity of operating a hotel. This guy is an idiot.
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Likewise, the court has said that Congress can regulate the growing of marijuana for personal medicinal use, even if the person being punished never engaged in any commercial activity.
The person grew marijuana, which could be sold, and which has a value on the market which he would otherwise pay. This is a special case since you can *only* use medical marijuana if there is already a medical condition which requires it. The "commercial activity" of obtaining marijuana is assumed prior to the act of growing the marijuana yourself.
The problem is that the activity which has to be ruled a "commercial activity" for the mandated insurance argument to work is "living". Their argument is that by living you will incur various health care costs, and thus living is itself a commercial activity (or an activity which will have a substantial commercial impact). But no court has *ever* gone remotely that far before. The author is correct that the courts have never ruled that specifically unconstitutional, but that's because no one's been silly enough to pass a law like this. It's hard to imagine that they wont rule it unconstitutional. There are simply far too many other elements in the constitution which define "life" as a right to allow the commerce clause to effectively say that the government can control your life because life is really just a commercially impacting activity..
