Is an Individual Health Insurance Mandate Constitutional?
David Rivkin and Lee Casey this week argued in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that the mandatory insurance provision in Senator Baucus’s health reform bill is unconstitutional. The argument goes like this: 1. Congress lacks authority under the Commerce Clause to require individuals to purchase insurance, because a “health-care mandate would not regulate any ‘activity.'” The authors reference United States v. Lopez and Gonzales v. Raich. 2. Because Congress can’t do it under the Commerce Clause, Baucus (and other supporters of an individual mandate) have called it a tax. (Baucus’s bill refers to the penalty for failure to insure an “excise tax,” to be administered and collected by the IRS.) 3. But this “excise tax” is plainly a penalty, pushing the bounds of the Supreme Court’s Taxing Clause jurisprudence. The authors: “The Supreme Court has never accepted such a proposition, and it is unlikely to accept it now, even in an area as important as health care.” The authors are wrong on
Related Questions
- I am married to another Nassau County employee and we do not have any children. Can we get two individual health insurance policies instead of one family policy?
- Can health insurance companies deny my application for individual insurance due to a health conditions?
- Is an Individual Health Insurance Mandate Constitutional?
