Today the House is debating the repeal of what Republicans call the "unconstitutional" and "job-killing" healthcare bill-- two terms they have long applied to virtually all government programs that have helped ordinary working families, programs like Social Security and Medicare. That's because Republicans and other right-wing political parties don't believe in the legitimacy of democratically elected governments acting as a force for positive social good in terms of fixing the balance between ordinary citizens and wealthy, powerful private interests (elites, corporations, etc). First off, the law isn't unconstitutional at all and the GOP arguments are merely spurious propaganda.
Congress's power to regulate the national healthcare market is unambiguous. Article I of the U.S. Constitution authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce. The national market in healthcare insurance and services, which Congress found amounts to over $2 trillion annually and consumes more than 17% of the annual gross domestic product, is unquestionably an important component of interstate commerce. One of the Framers' primary goals was to give Congress the power to regulate matters of national economic significance because states individually could not effectively manage them on their own. The problems facing the modern healthcare system today are precisely the sort of problems beyond the reach of individual states that led the Framers to give Congress authority to regulate interstate commerce.
Opponents of healthcare reform argue that a person who does not buy health insurance is not engaging in any commercial "activity" and thus is beyond Congress's power to regulate. But this argument misapprehends the unique state of the national healthcare market. Every individual participates in the healthcare market at some point in his or her life, and individuals who self-insure rather than purchase insurance pursue a course of conduct that inevitably imposes significant costs on healthcare providers and taxpayers.
Given that the minimum coverage provision bears a close and substantial relationship to the regulation of the interstate healthcare market, Congress can require minimum coverage pursuant to the Constitution's Necessary and Proper Clause. In a landmark decision studied by every law student, the Supreme Court in 1819 explained that the Necessary and Proper clause confirmed Congress's broad authority to enact laws beyond the strict confines of its other enumerated powers: "Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end" are lawful, the Court wrote. Since then, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that Congress, in regulating the national marketplace, can reach matters that when viewed in isolation may not seem to affect interstate commerce.
In 2005, Justice Antonin Scalia explained that the necessary and proper clause gives Congress broad authority to ensure that its economic regulations work. In Justice Scalia's words, "where Congress has authority to enact a regulation of interstate commerce, it possesses every power needed to make that regulation effective." Just last term, a majority of the Supreme Court, in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, wrote that in "determining whether the Necessary and Proper Clause grants Congress the legislative authority to enact a particular federal statute, we look to see whether the statute constitutes a means that is rationally related to the implementation of a constitutionally enumerated power."
rest at http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2011/01/makes-sense-that-steve-king-is-leading.html
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