Sullivan challenges constitutionality of Obamacare insurance mandate
Oklahoma 1st District Congressman John Sullivan has introduced a resolution (H. Res. 1063) targeting the individual health insurance mandate, one of the components of the Democratic Party health insurance proposal that passed the U. S. Senate in December, according to a news release on Sullivan's House website, issued today:
"My resolution builds off the efforts of at least 36 state legislatures, including Oklahoma, that are looking to limit or oppose health mandates in the House and Senate passed health care reform bills that would require purchase of government approved health insurance. These state actions are in direct opposition to the draconian national health care reform measures that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are negotiating behind closed doors behind the backs of the American people""Throughout the healthcare debate, the Administration and this Congress have largely ignored the most fundamental question of all - whether or not the federal government is overstepping its constitutional bounds by taking over our healthcare system " Sullivan said. "Even back in 1994, the non partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) wrote that it would be an unprecedented form of federal action for Congress to mandate that all individuals are required to purchase health insurance. I introduced this resolution to send a strong message that the personal mandates in both the House and Senate passed healthcare bills are unprecedented and unconstitutional - nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given the power to force Americans to purchase a good or service or enter into a contract - which these bills would do. By forcing Americans to purchase government approved health insurance, President Obama and Democrat leaders in Congress are essentially saying that you don't have a right to choose what health insurance plan is best for you, your family or your business - I strongly disagree."
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Sullivan challenges constitutionality of Obamacare insurance mandate.
TrackBack URL for this entry: https://www.batesline.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/5490
Subscribe to this blog's feed:
More hot air from Sullivan.
I actually happen to agree with him about mandates, but as usual he's just picking the "low-hanging fruit" and trying to score rhetorical points. A Resolution? Against a law yet to be enacted? Give me a break. Is this what we pay him to do?
Sullivan never offers any constructive or creative solutions to the problems of working people. He just whines about Obama and the Democrats. It's all "huffing and puffing" and trying to look tough.
The fact is the legions of uninsured impose a hefty "hidden tax" upon the rest of us, as they use inefficient health care services (e.g., emergency rooms) on a humanitarian basis, and those costs are passed along through the system.
The only way to deal with that is to get everyone covered. The only constitutional and efficient way to do that is to create a universal system operated through a non-profit or governmental national administrator utilizing tax revenue, but also to permit people to choose to pay for their own alternative or supplemental private care. In essence, we'd be trading our private insurance premiums + the hidden tax for simply a tax.
Mark is absolutely right and I see it at the hospital frequently. Right now one dr needs several support people just to keep up with all the different forms and requirements to get anything approved by the twenty-or-so insurance plans with which he must deal. Hospitals have this issue, plus the burden of treating the uninsured in their emergency rooms every day. Those costs are shifted to the rest of us. My question is, why are you and Sullivan okay with that?
Can we also do away with the State Mandatory Liability also while we are at it :-)
Not only is socialism, including socialist health care provision, immoral and impractical, it is indeed also unconstitutional. The federal government was never granted powers to socialize the economy; its powers and purposes are specific and delimited, and a large part of its purpose, stressed especially in the first ten amendments, was to prevent the national government from abusing its power by exceeding its explicitly specified authority. One commenter also declares that payment for services on the free market is a "tax" equal to the "tax" that would be imposed on us by government takeover of the healthcare industry. This is a form of the Orwellian dictum that freedom is slavery. Well, it ain't.