Obamacare unconstitutional Follow

Except this isn't a tax, this is a penalty for not buying health insurance being disguised as a tax. That argument didn't fly at all with the courts.

And the main point of law that's being used in the Constitution is the Commerce Clause. The question here is "Does the Commerce Clause allow Congress to require citizens to purchase a product and/or a service?". Two judges have said yes, and two have said no so far, with the biggest case saying no, and this is the question that will ultimately end up before the Supreme Court.

Really, I think the judge in this case has made a good point. If the federal government can require people to buy and carry health insurance, what's to stop them from requiring people to buy and eat healthy fruits and vegetables? Or pulling out a mortgage on a home that people own? Or buying GM electric cars (even if they have a driving radius of 80 miles or so)? It would give Congress way too much power, and render the idea of a limited federal government meaningless.

Maybe, but at the time, even with a majority in the House and a super majority in the Senate, the Health Care bill barely passed with a slim majority.

The single payer option, the one that you suggested, just wasn't politically viable at the time, and even less so now.

You should breath less.

That would be a brilliant bit of sarcasm if not for the fact that, you know, the Founding Fathers already felt that mandating private citizens to purchase things whether they want them or not or else be in violation of the law was perfectly okey-dokey.

Regardless of whether it is a penalty or a deduction it's still just a tax. There are plenty of other tax rate modifications that favor or disfavor other hundreds of other life choices. It's common place, well within congresses power, not even close to unconstitutional.

It would have been very simple to make it a tax. They could have written it in to the tax code as a fixed charge to everyone and changed the code to allow a deduction of health insurance premiums up to the amount of the tax. They could have included rebates for lower income people so they wouldn't be subject to the tax. In any number of ways they could have made it a tax.

They sold the bill to congress and to the American people by saying "this is not a tax.", so all of you out there who are so keen on using peoples' words against them, there you have it. In keeping with the time honored tradition of politicians (even those who are going to deliver us from the evil Georj Boosh) being duplicitous sons of ******** there has been a complete reversal and the Justice Department is arguing it as a tax in court.

Quote:
 
Fuel 	        CO2 Emissions    	        Tax "Environmental Penalty" 
gasoline 	19.6 lb/US gal (2.35 kg/L) 	$0.11/USgal ($0.028/L) 
diesel fuel 	22.4 lb/US gal (2.68 kg/L) 	$0.12/USgal ($0.032/L) 
jet fuel 	22.1 lb/US gal (2.65 kg/L) 	$0.12/USgal ($0.032/L)

ZOMG SOMEBODY WHIP OUT COMMERCE CLAUSE

It's retarded that people expect that this is going to amount to anything more than political pandering on the part of the GOP, there is even prior precedent for the federal government's ability to regulate interstate commerce extending to insurance ala United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association (322 U.S. 533 (1944)).
You mean other than the 12(?) that outright dismissed it as completely ridiculous?

not required by law, but pretty much required none the less.

So you're saying you grasp the difference? Or are you implying that it eludes you? I don't want to assume because you're Canadian, so I don't really know what to expect.

Don't be stupid. That was his point. Of 16(?) cases, only 4 were not dismissed meaning the majority weren't even argued, let alone agonized over. I don't give a flying f'uck whether you're for or against the current health care law, but be less of a f'ucking idiot when arguing your side.

We force people to take baths?

Huh. I've never heard of that.

But then... I do live in Tennessee...