At Least 37 States May Challenge Tyrannical For-Profit Health Insurance Mandate In The Courts

"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."

Once again, citings of Article 6 and federal law supremacy has constitutional limits. Something that clearly is not being reported when the media blabbers about federal law supremacy. The Constitution clearly identifies the states as having rights which cannot be trampled by unconstitutional federal law. And the powers of the federal government are clearly defined and limited in the Constitution. With regards to some powers, there are shades of grey in that limitation but that was by design. Federal supremacy is clear when we see examples of racists, kooks and zealots using State's Rights to trample on someone's Constitutional rights or civil liberties. Under this example, the federal government has a moral and Constitutional obligation to step in if states don't rectify the situation. The Constitution affords basic individual liberties to being an American -a federal supremacy responsibility.

Interpretation of case law, precedence, the Constitution and the like leaves the Constitutionality of a federally-mandated purchase of private for-profit health are as subjective in the courts. In other words, no one really knows exactly how the courts would rule. They can look at case law, precedence, past decisions by particular judges, etc and make educated guesses but judges are people prone to the same biases as everyone else. Remember, the Supreme Court at one time supported legalized slavery, supported a position that African Americans could never be citizens and countless other completely horrific anti-democratic and even criminal positions. In other words, the Supreme Court's decisions are often very subjective and can/should be challenged or overturned by the will of the people. (Something which clearly needs to be overturned with corporate personhood and the Supreme Court's asinine position of giving citizen rights to corporations - a position destroying democracy and our economy.)

Here's the reality of law in a democracy. It's often fluid. Many laws slowly change over time to reflect the mindset of society. Forty years ago laws allowed abhorrent racism. For God's sake, the most heinous of crimes, lynching, often went unpunished. Twenty years ago laws still allowed abhorrent inequality for gays and women. Today those biases may still exist in society but to a much lesser extent as reflected by current interpretation of law. The laws and the courts are continually moving towards more progressive views on Constitutional rights, civil rights, basic human dignities and equality because society is moving in that direction. In other words, the laws are changing to reflect the mindset of society as people make more informed decisions and rely less and less on those who have the microphone that spew small-minded positions of hatred and intolerance. This is also why Wall Street as we know it is finished. That is, exclusionary and even racist economic policies practiced by a morally-bankrupt banking system.

The federal government clearly has a right to involve itself in health care. I seriously doubt any Americans receiving Medicare want to "give it back" and go out to fight the tyrannical private for-profit health insurers. In other words, we already have government-run single payer health insurance for tens of millions of Americans. Those who argue the Constitution does not allow for government involvement in health care are morons who have never read the Constitution or fearmongering ideologues using terrorist tactics of hate or fear to manipulate people. That doesn't mean every single issue the federal government has a Constitutional right to should be undertaken by the government. There is a legitimate decision to disagree with government run or government mandated health care. I do know one thing. We don't need a 2,700 page health care bill. On the flip side, we also don't need private for-profit health insurance.

The issue is one of the constitutionality of federal mandates to purchase for-profit private health insurance. As is stated in the link below, this is a mandate to purchase a private for-profit product simply for breathing. Effectively, with a mandate to buy private for-profit health insurance, the federal government would become the legal enforcement arm of a private for-profit corporate tax on American citizens. Which, by the way, is also what we see with a for-profit military industrial complex. I believe the military industrial complex should be pubicly owned or not-for-profit as well. And for those who have a knee-jerk reaction to this statement, you might consider we would be under less pressure to engage in war after war after war were profits completely taken off the table. And I have seen some conservative think tanks consider a publicly-owned military industrial complex as a viable option. (Although I am not a fan of think tanks either.) Somehow profiting by killing people is very disconcerting when one philosophically considers this on an ethical plane.

Net, net is it's simply criminal in my estimation that public servants in Congress have access to the best health care in the world while tens of millions of Americans either have no insurance or live in fear of being dumped by the fraudulent insurance industry. It's criminal that public servants have the best health care in the world when people making $8 an hour with no health insurance are paying for public servant health care. And that Congress is being legally bribed to keep Americans from having the same health insurance as our servants is morally reprehensible. I don't care how the fix the health care system as long as the first consideration of its design point is one of moral clarity.

Link here.