Is Obama Care Constitutional?

Unconstitutional

The federal government has never required all Americans to buy any good or service. An individual mandate to enter into a contract with or buy a particular product from a private party, with tax penalties to enforce it, is unprecedented and flies in the face of our founding principles. Nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given the power to mandate that an individual enter into a contract with a private party or purchase a good or service and no decision or present doctrine of the Supreme Court justifies such a claim of power.

Just how far does this abuse of power extend? If Congress can impose a health-insurance mandate, then there is no limit to what Congress can do, and the Constitution's limits on congressional power will have essentially been eliminated.

Our Founding Fathers intentionally outlined limited powers for Congress and the federal government in the Constitution, and it would be good to look back to America’s first principles to guide us on health reform.

"We're not sure American schools teach civics any more, but once upon a time they taught that under the U.S. Constitution a bill had to pass both the House and Senate to become law. Until this week, that is, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving to merely 'deem' that the House has passed the Senate health-care bill and then send it to President Obama to sign anyway. Under the 'reconciliation' process that began [Monday] afternoon, the House is supposed to approve the Senate's Christmas Eve bill and then use 'sidecar' amendments to fix the things it doesn't like. Those amendments would then go to the Senate under rules that would let Democrats pass them while avoiding the ordinary 60-vote threshold for passing major legislation. This alone is an abuse of traditional Senate process. But Mrs. Pelosi & Co. fear they lack the votes in the House to pass an identical Senate bill, even with the promise of these reconciliation fixes. House Members hate the thought of going on record voting for the Cornhusker kickback and other special-interest bribes that were added to get this mess through the Senate, as well as the new tax on high-cost insurance plans that Big Labor hates. So at the Speaker's command, New York Democrat Louise Slaughter, who chairs the House Rules Committee, may insert what's known as a 'self-executing rule,' also known as a 'hereby rule.' Under this amazing procedural ruse, the House would then vote only once on the reconciliation corrections, but not on the underlying Senate bill. If those reconciliation corrections pass, the self-executing rule would say that the Senate bill is presumptively approved by the House -- even without a formal up-or-down vote on the actual words of the Senate bill. Democrats would thus send the Senate bill to President Obama for his signature even as they claimed to oppose the same Senate bill. They would be declaring themselves to be for and against the Senate bill in the same vote. Even John Kerry never went that far with his Iraq war machinations. ... This two-votes-in-one gambit is a brazen affront to the plain language of the Constitution, which is intended to require democratic accountability. Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution says that in order for a 'Bill' to 'become a Law,' it 'shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate.' This is why the House and Senate typically have a conference committee to work out differences in what each body passes. ... If Congress can now decide that the House can vote for one bill and the Senate can vote for another, and the final result can be some arbitrary hybrid, then we have abandoned one of [James] Madison's core checks and balances." --The Wall Street Journal