Two Years On: Obamacare

Pete Williams on Hardball sounded like he thinks it's going to go down 5-4.

 

If there is a fundamental right not to act, is it unconstitutional for any federal law to require us to do something?

The existence of other solutions -- even better solutions -- doesn't make this solution unconstitutional. Being unprecedented doesn't make it unconstitutional. And any power the government has is dangerous. The government could use its taxing power to raise taxes high enough to send the unemployment rate to 50 percent, or lower taxes to the point that we couldn't afford a military. Those would be unprecedented actions, and demonstrate how dangerous the taxing power is. But they wouldn't be unconstitutional.

 

He's guessing, like everybody else. But as long as you're onto Hardball, YF, does it seem to you Chris Matthews is getting even weirder at an accelerating pace? I just heard him say, "Let's think cosmically here." A cosmic Chris is a pretty scary concept. And it wasn't a marijuana legalization segment, either.

 

Health care = orange futures.

People die = let's not do all we can to not let it happen as easily.

Devo had it right: it's a beautiful world.

And unless something is a bill of attainder or a ex-post-facto bill, Congress has every right to pass any bill it wants.

 

As an informational sidebar, I'd ask in what way(s) health care is a 'limited resource'? Are those limits natural or artificial? Arbitrary? Unavoidable? Intentional?

Also in what ways a process can be parceled out as a commodity.

 

And remember when it was called "hyperbole" earlier in the thread when I said that people want to throw away the concept of limited government?

Congress only has the powers it is expressly given. If it can't prove that the law fits under one of those powers, they most certainly do not have the right to pass it, regardless of whether they are expressly prohibited from it.

 

Oh, you'll never hear me espouse the concept of "limited government," which has been the source of so much heartbreak in our history. Anyhoo, Congress can surely pass what it wants; the courts can decide the constitutionality of a law from there.

 

I just watched coverage on three different channels and the pundits all seemed to agree that the most likely scenario was that the whole thing would be thrown out.

Never a dull moment...

 

Reagan's solicitor general argues it falls under regulation of interstate commerce:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/reagans-solicitor-general-health-care-is-interstate-commerce-is-this-a-regulation-of-it-yes-end-of-story/2011/08/25/gIQAmaQigS_blog.html