Healthcare reform unconstitutional James A. Gesick It is time to recognize the elephant in the room with the health care debate. For the most part the discussion has been on the projected costs and the merits of specific items to be included in the bill (1,500+ pages and growing) but it has sidestepped the primary concern: neither Congress nor the executive branch would seem to have the constitutional authority to mandate that every citizen purchase a specific good or service or the authority to provide a specific good or service to all at the expense of taxes on some as a condition of citizenship. But if you accept the premise that the government has the authority to mandate the purchase of some form of health insurance then by the same principle they have the authority to mandate the purchase of any other good or service, say a particular type of automobile (Government Motors comes to mind), and the possibility of abuse of power is unlimited. The primary debate needs to be on the constitutionality of the very concept of government mandated national health insurance; if it is not constitutionally appropriate for our elected government to make such a mandate, and I for one do not think it is, then the rest of the discussion on costs and coverage is irrelevant. Make no mistake, once we start down this road there will be no end of mischief.
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