Obamacare unconstitutional Follow

would love to see a modern age militia, since they are not authorized to posses anything but whats on that list. Canada could probably beat that militia.

There's a pretty significant difference between requiring people to help provide for defense of the country and requiring them to provide health care for other people. I also suspect that had they proposed that instead of requiring each person to provide for themselves sufficient gear required to fulfill their needs when serving in the militia that each person pay into a pool of money from which gear would be provided based on need, that there would have been some balking. The duty to the state was a personal one and each was expected to provide it themselves. However, the gear thus used was owned by the individual and used by that individual in defense of the state. It wasn't collected from them all and then re-distributed as the state desired.

Um... There's also the huge issue of purpose. The purpose of the 1792 law was to ensure that each person who served in the militia came equipped with what he would need to serve. The purpose of the mandate in the health care act is to fund other parts of the health care system. The 1792 law is more like a mandate to get inoculated prior to attending public school than the mandate in the health care law. They are completely different in nature.

And a significant similarity in that both laws required private citizens to purchase things by government decree. That's supposedly the real issue -- can the government require private citizens to purchase something whether they want to or not? The 1792 law, regardless of its motives, did exactly that.

More to the point, the S. Dakota law that was designed to be unconstitutional was something passed a couple hundred years ago.

1792 =/= 1972

Edited, Feb 1st 2011 6:01pm by Jophiel

Then you are stupid, If you don't know what luring people off the government plan into private care does to the cost of spending the government does then I am afraid you are a moron.

Reduced Health Care costs means your tax dollars go elsewhere. As a private health customer you also get a 30% tax rebate on the cost of your plan. So you directly save 30% of your yearly heath costs.

I don't know how much clearer that needs to be spelled out.

Lastly the part you don't like about forcing people on one plan or the other. Well that alone will decrease the cost of care. Either people will be switching to private of government plan, or paying the government a fine.

So either you don't like spending 70 bil a year, and can live with everyone required to have an insurance plan, or you like spending 70 bil a year.

Except that in one case, the government was already mandating that citizens serve in a militia. The law simply said that they had to bring their own gear. What it *didn't* require was that they bring gear for other people, nor did the gear they bring cease to be their own property at any point.

It is much more similar to requiring that children be inoculated prior to attending public school. And I might remind you, we also mandate that children attend public school or an approved alternative. Same deal. It's still an infringement, but a much much less intrusive one.



I'll also point out that it didn't require that they purchase anything, only that they have something in their possession. For most people, this was something they already had anyway, and it was generally a one time purchase. What the government is doing with health care is mandating a yearly cost into an insurance program. It also disallows any alternative method of achieving the same thing (health care). I'm no longer allowed toa simply pay out of pocket for health care. I *must* purchase my health care through an insurance medium.

Once you get past the very simplistic "they're making you buy something!" the analogy you're making falls apart. And to be fair, so is the one the SD lawmakers were making. The point being that the SD mandate is less of a violation of the constitution, but would presumably be opposed by the very people who support the health care mandate.


I'm not a big fan of gotcha politics anyway, so it's not like I'm going to go out on a limb defending the approach. I'd rather make reasoned arguments about what the constitution says then make clever little comparisons like that.



With a few differences, like that pesky requirement to be in the local militia. Look, IIRC there were also laws back then requiring each person to be part of the citizen bucket brigade to help fight fires, and they had to bring their own buckets. Are we going to make clever comparisons to that as well?

At the end of the day, what we're looking at is the reality that certain necessary public services (like military, fire, and police) have over time been shifted from being the obligation of each citizen to something that is publicly funded in some way. As we did this, the burden shifted from providing your service and whatever equipment may have been required to provide that service, to paying some form of taxes to pay for the same. We've shifted how we pay for those things, but not what to any great degree.


This represents a huge shift in the "what". It represents an assumption that there's some obligation on every citizens behalf to provide for the health care of every other citizen. Regardless of whether you believe that should be the case, it has never been assumed to be the case before, and certainly wasn't even remotely considered back when this country was founded. Even as we introduced systems like social security and medicare, they were framed in the context of each individual paying into a fund from which they receive benefits. If you never paid into them, you didn't get anything out. Only in recent decades, and over the protests and disagreements of conservatives, has the idea that health care is somehow a "right" and that the public has an obligation to provide it to anyone who needs it regardless of other conditions been put forth.


What the mandate represents in effect is about the question of whether or not we view providing health care to everyone as a public service on the same level as police, fire, and military protections. The pre-amble of the Constitution mentions "provide for the common defense", but no-where does it say that we must provide people with free medical care. Ultimately, it comes down to what we view as the role of government. And for some of us, we believe strongly that government should have the smallest role possible. Basic necessary services? Absolutely. You have to have them to have a working society. But you do *not* have to have publicly provided health care for a society to operate. It's not necessary.


And that may end out being the biggest constitutional question of all. Do we limit government's power to those areas where it must necessarily get involved, or do we allow it to involve itself into any area in which it perceives some kind of public good? If the latter, then where are the limits? Yes. Slippery slope. I know. But we're dealing with legal precedent here, so it's very appropriate to ask the questions: "What does this change in our approach to government power?" and "What is next?". Because in my opinion, if we allow this mandate, then there is effectively no limit to what government can get involved in, since there's really no limit to what services might fall under the umbrella of "public good". And of course, that leads us directly to a Brave New World style distopian future!

So you ARE okay with the government mandating you purchase things on the private market whether you want them or not so long as you agree with the end result.

Good to know :)

But you are okay with the government mandating that each person possess this material and is mandated to purchase it if they don't have it already. There's no "But I don't want to join the militia" option or "Well, I'll have my own home militia so I'm exempt" option or any option beyond "you are legally required by the federal government to privately purchase and own this stuff or else you are in violation of this law".

Again, good to know. Keep insisting that this is TOTALLY DIFFERENT though. It's fun.

That's interesting. So we need a military and police and fire services, but we don't need health care.

I guess the Christian Scientists have it right after all!

We don't need to collectively provide it, no. It's of interest to note that this is not the same as something like the CDC, or even mandates for inoculations in public school. Those are collective issues. An invading army targets my life, liberty, and property as much as the person next door. A fire does the same. So do criminals. And so do outbreaks of disease. All of those can be seen as in the collective public interest and so we can justify some infringement to protect against them.

Providing direct full health care beyond that required to prevent the spread of disease is *not* a necessary protection of the public. Do you see the distinction yet?



Has nothing to do with that. I also don't think that government has a responsibility to provide people with housing, or food, or clothing, or a zillion other things. It does have a responsibility to protect those things that people have though. But that's also a completely different thing. It really does never cease to amaze me how many people just absolutely don't understand the distinction I'm talking about. This is something which should be taught to every child in school, but no one seems to ever have been even exposed to this basic concept of the role of government at any point in their education. It makes me wonder what criteria you guys use to decide what government can and can't do. Is it just arbitrary? Whatever the majority wants at the time? Cause that seems a bit unprincipled to me.

Why?

I wonder what could fall under that...oh I know protecting the persons lives from injury and disease. Wow, so you must really like the new health plan.

Not at all. You don't have an inherent issue with the government mandating that private citizens must purchase items from the private sector or else be in violation of the law. You may have an issue with how that's applied but you don't have an issue with the core concept provided you agree with its motives and application.

I wasn't even trying to get you admit to this but was just laughing at the S. Dakota thing. But this was a nice side benefit :)

Edited, Feb 1st 2011 10:08pm by Jophiel

It's not like people get thrown in jail if they choose not to buy health insurance, they just get taxed slightly higher, just like we tax people slightly higher or lower for dozens and dozens of other reasons without the supreme court having to rule on each one.



argument defeated.

and away!

Also, if you are never shot or robbed at gunpoint, you have also utilized the service.