Date: February 21, 2012
Former Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum recognized the constitutional threats posed by Obamacare early on. So he insisted Florida take the lead in crafting a court challenge to the health care law, a challenge which has been joined by 25 other states.
In doing so, McCollum weathered the scorn of the left, which branded him as a political hack willing to waste taxpayer dollars pushing a case based on legal nonsense.
While different courts have rendered different judgments on the legal challenges, they’ve left no doubt that the constitutional arguments against Obamacare are far from spurious. On the contrary, the issues raised reach into the core of America’s governing principles.
Is the federal government’s constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce so broad that it can force individuals to purchase a specific product on the private market, in this case, health insurance?
Has the 10th Amendment been so eviscerated that now the federal government can coerce states to bend completely to its will on Medicaid funding?
Do the Constitution’s “enumerated powers” represent a check on the federal government, or is the “necessary and proper” clause in the Constitution so elastic that Washington can use it to expand its power over the states and individuals to whatever degree it sees fit?
The U.S. Supreme Court eventually will render judgment on these questions, and the justices’ findings will influence the shape of other legislation for decades to come. Those who value constitutional liberties should hope the court takes the limited-government course outlined in the suit initiated by McCollum. There are ways to reform health-care delivery in America that don’t destroy the principles of limited government enshrined in the Constitution, but Obamacare isn’t one of them.
Florida filed suit soon after the passage of Obamacare, so its legal challenge doesn’t even mention the most recent administration assault on the Constitution.
In total disregard for the First Amendment’s protection of religious liberty, the Department of Health and Human Services decreed that under Obamacare, Catholic hospitals, schools and charities must provide insurance policies to employees that cover birth control, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. Failure to comply would result in ruinous fines.
The federal government, in effect, demanded that Catholic Institutions sacrifice principles that make them Catholic. President Obama later offered a so-called “accommodation” by declaring insurance companies, rather than the Catholic institutions, must pay for the goods and services. But the bishops recognized this was merely an accounting ruse that would still force church institutions to operate in a way that runs counter to Catholic doctrine.
Most Democrats want voters to think the controversy is simply about birth control, but don’t be fooled. It’s about the freedom of religion, and the efforts of an out-of-control government to force a two-thousand-year-old religious institution to bow to the demands of a leviathan state.
Not only does the administration’s position violate the First Amendment, it also ignores a federal statute. In 1993, by a near-unanimous vote, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which is designed to prevent government intrusions into religion such as the one now being engineered against the Catholic Church by Obama and his acolytes.
There’s another principle in play here as well. How did the president conjure up the authority to force private sector insurance companies to provide “free” goods and services to a specific group of people?
What next? Will the government force oil companies to provide “free” gasoline to people, or computer companies to give “free” laptops to students?
The Fifth Amendment prohibits the government from taking property without due process and just compensation, but apparently the president believes he can ignore the Constitution and do so by administrative fiat.
In March, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the Obamacare challenges. It needs to render judgment swiftly, and slay this beast before it tramples on even more constitutional rights.
(SOURCE)
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