I've been following the arguments on the Affordable Healthcare Act's mandate and I have come to the same conclusion I came to when it passed: the mandate that we must buy private insurance from for-profit companies is unconstitutional.
Now, I'm a satirist, not a Constitutional scholar, but I have been convinced all along that the mandate in the ACA is simply wrong. It was wrong in Massachusetts, and it's wrong here.
A little more over the fold...
Here's how I saw this originally: the President and the Congress takes single-payer "Medicare for all" off the table. They strike this deal with insurance companies: "We'll take that off the table, but you're going to have to insure people with pre-existing conditions, but we'll do what they did in Massachusetts and compel everyone to buy your coverage".
How anyone can argue that this is Constitutional, is beyond me. It is a Corporatist ideology which just doesn't fit. I can't find anywhere where the Federal Government can compel me to purchase something.
Now I do understand this: the Federal Government can regulate insurance companies. They probably can tell them that they must insure high-risk persons. I just can't see how we can be compelled to purchase a product from a private corporation by the Government.
I support this President, and will vote for him again no matter how this turns out. However, I think this is a bad bill. I want to see Medicare extended to everyone who wants it. If I'm going to pay a fine for not having private insurance, I would rather pay an honest tax to buy in to Medicare. As for private insurance companies, there will always be people who can afford to purchase supplemental insurance policies.
There's also always the Bismarck Model, such as Germany uses, and there are elements of this in the AHA with the idea of insurance co-ops. Either way, in the long run I suspect this SCOTUS case no matter how it is decided will get us looking forward to real and proper reform.
What say you? I'm curious to know.