If you took an oath to defend The Constitution, what would it take to make you take some action?
Pelosi derisively replies "Are you serious?" to a question where the Constitution empowers the Federal Govt to force people to buy health insurance.
CNSNews.com -
Patrick Leahy is chairman of The Senate Judiciary Committee
“Why would you say there is no authority? I mean, there’s no question there’s authority, nobody questions that,” Leahy told CNSNews.com.
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All versions of the health care bill currently being considered in Congress mandate that individuals buy heatlh insurance. Americans who don't would be subject to a financial penalty.
Attorney David Rivkin Jr., who worked in the Justice Department under both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said that Sen. Leahy's response about the constitutional authority to mandate the purchase of health insurance "is wrong."
"None of Congress' enumerated powers support an individual purchase mandate," said Rivkin. "We have made this case in considerable detail in our recent articles in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. Indeed, the Congressional Research Service, an entity that is usually deferential to Congress' prerogatives and prone to take an expansive view of congressional powers, when asked by the Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus about the constitutionality of individual purchase mandates could only say that this is a 'novel question.'"
"This mandate can only be based upon a view that Congress can exercise general police powers, a view profoundly at odds with the Framers' vision of the federal government as one of limited and enumerated powers," he said. "If the federal government can mandate an individual insurance purchase mandate, it can also mandate an unlimited array of other mandates and prescriptions, including the mandate to buy health club memberships or even to purchase a given quantity of fruits and vegetables."
"This state of affairs would completely warp our constitutional fabric, vitiate any autonomous role for the states and eviscerate individual liberty," said Rivkin. "It is profoundly un-American."
This is not the first time Congress has considered forcing Americans to buy health insurance. In 1993-94, an individual mandate was a key component of then-President Bill Clinton’s health care reform proposal.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said in a 1994 report that for federal government to order Americans to buy health insurance would be “unprecedented,” adding that the government had “never required” Americans to purchase anything. “A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action,” CBO found.
“The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States," said the CBO report.
"An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government."
Although Sen. Leahy said that "nobody" questions that Congress has the authority to force Americans to buy health insurance, Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee did question whether Congress had that authority when the health-care bill was being debated in their committee. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah) tried to offer an amendment that would expedite judicial review of the bill were it enacted, but Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D.-Mont.) ruled that Hatch's amendment was out of order.
In making his ruling, Sen. Baucus said the issue should not be considered by the Finance Committee because it came under the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee--the panel chaired by Sen. Leahy.
"If we have the power simply to order Americans to buy certain products, why did we need a Cash-for-Clunkers program or the upcoming program providing rebates for purchasing energy appliances?" Hatch asked on Oct. 1 when trying to offer his amendment in the committee. "We could simply require Americans to buy certain cars, dishwashers or refrigerators."
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