Clueless Dick Durbin doesn't know mandates are in H.R.3200 (video)

At a televised health care town hall, a constituent asks Senator Dick Durbin if the constitution allows the government to mandate Americans buy health insurance. Durbin claims ignorance of what is in H.R.3200 and refuses to say he will oppose mandates in the Senate version. It is unbelievable that Durbin is that ignorant of the house bill. Senator Durbin is either disingenuous or too lazy to do his job. Read the bill Senator. If that is too much trouble, turn on FOX News or do a Google search. When pressed on the mandate question, Durbin said, "I'd like to see how it's written." This statement indicates Durbin is OK with mandates if the language suits him. Interestingly, the questioner has a great defense against the comparison of mandatory car insurance to mandatory health insurance. The video gets interesting at the 2:30 mark.

Senator Durbin does not know what's in the Healthcare bill (video)

Is it Constitutional for President Obama and the Democrats to force you to buy health insurance?

With all the other issues surrounding Obamacare, there has been very little discussion of this question. Where in the Constitution does it give President Obama and Congress the power to force Americans to buy health insurance?

From the Washington Post:

Although the Supreme Court has interpreted Congress’s commerce power expansively, this type of mandate would not pass muster even under the most aggressive commerce clause cases. In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the court upheld a federal law regulating the national wheat markets. The law was drawn so broadly that wheat grown for consumption on individual farms also was regulated. Even though this rule reached purely local (rather than interstate) activity, the court reasoned that the consumption of homegrown wheat by individual farms would, in the aggregate, have a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce, and so was within Congress’s reach.

The court reaffirmed this rationale in 2005 in Gonzales v. Raich, when it validated Congress’s authority to regulate the home cultivation of marijuana for personal use. In doing so, however, the justices emphasized that — as in the wheat case — “the activities regulated by the [Controlled Substances Act] are quintessentially economic.” That simply would not be true with regard to an individual health insurance mandate.

The otherwise uninsured would be required to buy coverage, not because they were even tangentially engaged in the “production, distribution or consumption of commodities,” but for no other reason than that people without health insurance exist. The federal government does not have the power to regulate Americans simply because they are there. Significantly, in two key cases, United States v. Lopez (1995) and United States v. Morrison (2000), the Supreme Court specifically rejected the proposition that the commerce clause allowed Congress to regulate noneconomic activities merely because, through a chain of causal effects, they might have an economic impact. These decisions reflect judicial recognition that the commerce clause is not infinitely elastic and that, by enumerating its powers, the framers denied Congress the type of general police power that is freely exercised by the states.

House Democrats propose mandatory insurance and a $1 trillion tax increase for successful Americans

House Democrats are preparing to unveil a health insurance overhaul that proposes mandatory insurance and a $1 trillion tax increase for successful Americans. Is this the change America voter for?

From the New York Times:

House Democrats are preparing on Tuesday afternoon to unveil a full draft of their sweeping health care legislation, including an income surtax on the country’s highest wage-earners to help pay the 10-year, roughly $1 trillion cost of the measure.

The House bill will include all the hallmarks of a revamped health care system that Democrats have been clamoring for, including a new government-run insurance plan that would compete with private insurers. The goal, of course, is to broadly expand health coverage to the more than 40 million Americans without insurance, while slowing the steep rise in cost of medical care and improving patient outcomes with more effective treatments.

The bill will prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and will also require all Americans to obtain health insurance. But many of its key provisions, including the public insurance option, will take several years to kick in.

Why Would Wal-Mart Support Mandatory Employer Provided Health Insurance?

Why would Wal-Mart embrace President Barack Obama's call to require all large employers to offer health insurance? This is the stance Wal-Mart has taken.

From The Hill:

With Wal-Mart’s endorsement of a legal requirement that employers provide health benefits to their workers, the nation’s largest employer has broken from the business community.

The so-called employer mandate is adamantly opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business and virtually every major business trade association in Washington. But the backing of Wal-Mart, which employs about 2 million people, could give a big boost to President Obama and Congress’s effort to levy such a requirement on companies.

Moreover, Wal-Mart declared its support for the employer mandate in a joint letter to Obama with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the liberal Center for American Progress, which is run by John Podesta, a close associate of the White House.

The reason turns out to be it would hurt their competitors more than them.

From Wizbang:

Why would they want a mandate? Read on to find out:

Wal-Mart recently said that 94 percent of its employees now have insurance, either through the company or a family member.

The law would not affect them, so endorsing it is a cost free decision. But all those other retailers who don't offer health insurance will find their costs going up. Grocery store chains like SuperValu, Kroger, and Safeway, department stores like Target, big box stores like Home Depot and Lowes, electronic retailers like Best Buy will all find themselves with higher costs if the health insurance mandate becomes written into law. Wal-Mart is just begging the government to impose a mandate on them that will cost them nothing, but saddle their competitors with a huge new expense. I can't wait until Obama says it's for the children.