The Supreme Court of the United States today reaffirmed their lack of commitment to the Constitution in upholding Obamacare in its entirety. The Individual Mandate, the heart of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), was the portion of the law that most legal observers expected to be defeated. The remaining question in most legal circles was how the remainder of the law would be implemented without the individual mandate. In a stunning reversal, however, George W. Bush appointed Chief Justice John Roberts cast the deciding vote to uphold the law in its entirety, granting unprecedented power to the Federal government.
The Individual Mandate was argued by liberals to be legal under the “Commerce Clause,” which grants power to the Congress to regulate existing interstate markets. The rub was that the PPACA (Obamacare) law created a new market in mandating healthcare coverage, not merely regulated an existing market. Thus, using the Commerce Clause to justify the creation of a new market wasn’t just a substantial expansion of the Constitution’s original intent, but a trampling of states’ rights under the 10th Amendment to the Constitution of this country. The Individual Mandate was upheld as part of Congress’ taxing power, not as authorized by the Commerce Clause.
Chief Justice John Roberts, in writing the concurring opinion, justified upholding the Individual Mandate by claiming that it is a tax. I’m admittedly not a lawyer, but I do study law and I can read, and this was never considered a tax on the American people. Even the President of the United States repeatedly claimed that the Individual Mandate “is not a tax.” Nevertheless, the robbed rulers of the Supreme Court deemed it a tax to avoid striking it as an abuse of the Commerce Clause. So, while the conventional wisdom was that upholding the Obamacare Individual Mandate under the Commerce Clause would represent a power grab in itself, this ruling also radically redefines the power of Congress as it pertains to taxation.
It is not an exaggeration to suggest that this ruling represents the end of Federalism in America, and the rise of nearly unrestricted Federal power over the lives of the people of this country.
We must now, as lovers of liberty, work to elect Mitt Romney in November, elect a conservative Senate to support the GOP controlled House of Representatives and move forward to repeal and replace this monstrosity of Federal overreach before the Republic is irrevocable.
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Josh, you and I both know that it will never be repealed. Once the state grows it rarely ever shrinks. Social Security still stands. Medicare and Medicaid still stand. Department of Education still stands. Federal Reserve still stands. Patriot Act still stands. And you expect me and other readers to believe that the man who passed the blueprint to Obamacare is gonna repeal it? It cannot be repealed in small bits. It has to be the entire law. Once any part begins to put other people’s money into someone else’s pockets, you know politicians won’t turn off the welfae hose, for it will mean their jobs.