an argument for a single payer health care system



If the Supreme Court does decide to strike down any or all of the Affordable Health Care Act, the implications will range from the political to the medical to the economic.

Let’s begin by imagining that Congress and the president decided to adopt a genuinely radical health care plan—the kind in place in most of the industrialized world.

They decide on a “single-payer” system, where the government raises revenue with taxes, and pays the doctor, hospital and lab bills for just about everyone.

The question is: would such a law be constitutional?

The answer, unquestionably, is “yes.” In fact, it would be the simplest law in the world to enact. All the Congress would need to do is to take the Medicare law and strike out the words “over 65.”

Why is it constitutional?

For the same reason Medicare and Social Security are: the taxing power.

Why is Obama’s health care plan, with a far more modest use of government power, in serious jeopardy?

It’s because the key element in the plan—the “mandate” to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty—was not based on the taxing power, but on Congress’s power, under Article I, Section 8, to regulate interstate commerce.

And that power, while broad, has its limits...even if those limits are murky.

Up until the late 1930s, those limits were more like shackles. The Supreme Court repeatedly struck down state and federal laws regulating wages, hours and working conditions on the grounds that the commerce power only touched the distribution of goods, not their manufacture.

But once the court changed its mind—after an effort by FDR to “pack” the court with additional justices had failed—there seemed to be no limits at all.

Back in 1942, the court said the government could stop a farmer from growing his own wheat for his own use, because of the potential effects on the wider market.

But in 1995, for the first time in decades, the court said “no” to a federal law based on the Commerce clause—one banning firearms within school zones—because it could find no reasonable connection between the law and interstate commerce.


http://news.yahoo.com/supreme-irony...urt-than-the-affordable-health-care-act-.html
 
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