The constitutional dilemma of Obamacare

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry, raising the specter of a showdown with the Obama administration, suggested Thursday that he would consider invoking states’ rights protections under the 10th Amendment to resist the president’s healthcare plan, which he said would be "disastrous" for Texas.

It's surprising to me that more opponents of Obamacare don't even mention the obvious Constitutional problem with nationalized healthcare. The United States government simply has no authority to mandate that its citizens obtain health insurance or face a fine.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

As we all know, this is the forgotten amendment. The courts have long allowed Congresses and presidents to twist the meaning of the constitution (particularly through the Commerce Clause and the 14th Amendment) so that all manner of unconstitutionalities are deeply enshrined in American law.

The forum for resistance is on the state level. If individuals refuse to obey federal law or regulation on the grounds that it violates the 10th amendment, they invariably get nowhere. For some reason, where the amendment reserves rights to "the people," the courts are not interested in guaranteeing them to people, much less individual persons.

States could well be a different story. When the feds imposed a national speed limit or a national drinking age (both clearly outside their constitutional mandate), they could only do it by threatening to withhold huge chunks of federal highway funding. Some states resisted, but not for long. The voters of a state, collectively disinterested in the particulars of constitutional verbiage and the niceties of states rights under American federalism, would not hesitate to punish their state legislators and governors for the kind of highway construction and maintenance trouble that would result from a principled stand against unconstitutional coercion.

I think this may be different. With highway funding, the feds established guidelines for engineering, etc., and allowed the states a lot of leeway on how, where, and when highways would be built. Not so with Obamacare, which would immediately begin placing huge proscriptive burdens on businesses, individuals, physicians, and states. If a state like Texas were to take a principled stand and refuse to participate, develop an alternative plan for improving health care through free markets and tort reform, and most importantly stick with it, they could make a real statement. Doctors who do not care to be employees of the federal government will move their practices to Texas, where they and their patients can make decisions without the input of some office in Washington. Liberty-minded citizens, sick at the prospect of socialized medicine, can escape to Texas. I would seriously consider the prospect.

The key is sticking with it. The full burden of Obamacare would not be felt for a few years. After all, the plan has to seem like it's working for the first few years, while its Congressional backers get firmly entrenched. Like refusing highways dollars, there would be initial pain while the feds take more money from free Americans who, because of their principled stand, get nothing in return. This is the current status quo, but is concealed by smoke & mirrors. The effect of a genuine states' rebellion against unconstitutional federal mandates would be to whisk away the smoke and reveal the mirrors. At the same time, it should reveal to the citizens of the various states, and especially their legislators, how much power is meant to be vested in them.

Comments

[Dad]

Brilliant!