Reps. to Illinois AG Madigan: Challenge New Health Care Mandate
Members of Congress asked Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to join a court challenge to ObamaCare's health care purchasing mandate.
Six Illinois Members of Congress asked Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to join a court challenge against ObamaCare’s health care purchasing mandate. To date, 13 attorneys general have announced their intention to sue.
Letter is here, signatories include Representatives Don Manzullo, Aaron Schock, Peter Roskam, Judy Biggert, John Shimkus and Tim Johnson.
In a nutshell, here’s why the purchasing mandate is problematic:
Can Congress really require that every person purchase health insurance from a private company or face a penalty? The answer lies in the commerce clause of the Constitution, which grants Congress the power “to regulate commerce . . . among the several states.” Historically, insurance contracts were not considered commerce, which referred to trade and carriage of merchandise. That’s why insurance has traditionally been regulated by states. But the Supreme Court has long allowed Congress to regulate and prohibit all sorts of “economic” activities that are not, strictly speaking, commerce. The key is that those activities substantially affect interstate commerce, and that’s how the court would probably view the regulation of health insurance.
But the individual mandate extends the commerce clause’s power beyond economic activity, to economic inactivity. That is unprecedented. While Congress has used its taxing power to fund Social Security and Medicare, never before has it used its commerce power to mandate that an individual person engage in an economic transaction with a private company.