re: #216 ggt

I don’t understand why the Obamacare is being argued under the Commerce Clause.

I don’t understand why forcing an individual to buy health insurance is fundamentally changing the realtionship between the individual and the government when individuals are already forced to contribute to what amounts to an annuity in the form of Social Security.

Yes, I know it really isn’t an annuity.

Are we just arguing in homes of eventually ironing out a system that works instead of shelving the whole idea for another 10 years? I think just about everyone (except the extreme whackos) agree something has to be done.

The argument under the Commerce Clause is because there’s no “opting out” of healthcare, everybody ends up in the market eventually. Unless you go off the grid from the moment your parents drop you from their insurance and live like a hermit, you’re going to end up in the hospital at some time. By saying that you have a “choice” to stay out of the system until you eventually get sick/injured enough to show up at the hospital, what you’re really saying is that you have a “choice” to dump your eventual medical costs on everybody else in the market.

Hence the mandate, which the Right used to champion, back when they thought it meant “personal responsibility.”