Commerce Clause

How does Congress defend their new bill against those who say it is unconstitutional? Healthcare has a "Taking" clause,giving them the right to take your money! No Supreme Court precedent can allow it. The government has never required a citizen to buy any good or service as a condition for being a citizen. Furthermore, this would impose a duty on residences and require people to purchase a specific service that is heavily regulated by the Federal Gov't. This is without a doubt unconstitutional.

This individual mandate requiring or rather commanding all American to enter into a contractual agreement with an insurance company is taking congressional power into a whole new dangerous level. All of Congress are responsible for determining if their actions are within the Constitution.

Those who drafted our Constitution did so with the expressed desire to limit government, placing constrains on their power. It has a system of checks and balances that is designed to prevent any one government from exerting too much control over free people. However, this new healthcare actually has a provision that states:Future congresses can't repel the bill, or change it.

Nowhere in our Constitution does it give Congress the right to force us to buy anything. So in order for this new healthcare reform to stand, the Supreme Court will have to create a new constitutional doctrine. However, Pelosi claims that the Commerce Clause is exactly what they are using to uphold their power.

It states: Congress has the authority to regulate Commerce with foreign nations and amoung the States and Indian Tribes. The Supreme Court has stated, " The authority of the federal government may not be pushed to such an extreme as to destroy the distinction, which the commerce clause itself establishes, between commerce "among the several States" and the internal concerns of a State. That distinction between what is national and what is local in the activities of commerce is vital to the maintenance of our federal system. " N.L.R.B. vs. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.

There are three categories of activity the courts have used for determining the commerce clause. First-Congress can regulate interstate or foreign commerce such as ships, railroad, highway or air transport. Secondly-Commerce power is to protect interstate commerce, such as thefts or destruction of shipments. And Third-Congress may regulate economic activities that affect interstate commerce.

Since individual healthcare insurance mandate is not a channel of interstate commerce, then Congress must try to state that it falls under the third category. They say that individual responsibility is commercial and economic in nature and therefore substantially affects interstate commerce. In other words, a person's failure to enter into a contract with insurance is an activity that is economic in nature and therefore affects interstate commerce. Never in history has commerce power been used to require a person who is doing nothing to engage in activity. With that in mind, where would this slippery slope end. The government could say that if we are not buying a certain product, then we are hurting the economy and therefore they can evoke the Commerce Clause to madate that we all buy a certain product. (Sad, sad day; time is 7:36am))