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Obamacare: The Ultimate Statist Bait-and-Switch

Jun. 29, 2012 12:42pm
Before joining the Blaze, Buck served as an officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, assigned to the Counterterrorism Center and Office of Iraq Analysis. He  […]
Before joining the Blaze, Buck served as an officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, assigned to the Counterterrorism Center and Office of Iraq Analysis. He also served as an analyst for the NYPD Intelligence Division. He has field experience in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. Buck has a B.A. in Political Science from Amherst College. He is a native of New York City, where he currently resides.
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buck@theblaze.com

The Supreme Court’s Affordable Care Act decision was an unmitigated disaster for limited government and the sovereignty of the individual. Chief Justice Roberts shoehorned the ACA into the Constitution with reasoning too clever by half. Roberts’ majority opinion managed to be simultaneously incoherent and disingenuous. Above all else, it cannot evade a simple truth: the Supreme Court changed the meaning of a law after it was passed to construct a tenuous Constitutional cover for it. The American people were promised one thing, and given another. And now we stare squarely into a future of socialized medicine and unlimited federal power.

It did not have to be so.

Apologists for Roberts have offered that the Chief Justice was concerned for the overall legacy of the court. But this excuse is flimsy. First off, it was a 5-4 decision, so there was no judicial mandate here. If a 5-4 decision was lamentable on Citizens United for Democrats, it cannot be less so now for Republicans. No honest observer would say the court now appears less politicized (quite the contrary). Had Roberts joined with the other members of the court who supposedly share his conservative leanings, the day would have been won.

Another purported principle called upon to defend Roberts—deference to Congress—has obvious limits. The Supreme Court strikes down unconstitutional laws, all of which were presumably passed by Congress. It is the sole arbiter of the level of its legislative deference. SCOTUS defers to Congress, until it doesn’t, and it shouldn’t have this time around. All of this was merely more fatuous cover for the unjust majority decision.

If Roberts was truly concerned with showing due deference to the legislature, then shouldn’t he have taken the Congress at its word when it called the ACA a “penalty”? One would think legislators understand the language in their laws. President Obama certainly seemed emphatic in his previous denials of the ACA as a tax. At a minimum, the proper course of action for the court would have been to strike down the law and send it back to the Congress for passage as a tax. If the people’s voice should be heard, the people have a right to know what they are demanding first.

Despite the 5-4 ruling, this wasn’t really a close decision. The dissent was not over just the individual mandate component of the law, but the whole thing. The four justices of the minority wanted to strike down the Obamacare monstrosity in one fell swoop. The majority bent over backwards to find a way to make a law constitutional, and their colleagues thought the whole thing was a grave overreach. The only middle ground was agreeing that the Commerce Clause cannot regulate inactivity, which should have been obvious from the start, and was crystal clear during oral arguments. That the dissent was jointly signed may have been an indication that the conservatives in the court have their own misgivings about its legitimacy after this debacle.

The Roberts opinion does real harm to the broader credibility of our legal system. The individual mandate was called a “penalty” to get around a federal law (the Anti-Injunction Act) and then resurrected as a “tax” to make it constitutional. The joint dissent nailed this contorted legalese as “deep in the forbidden lands of the sophists.” To call Obamacare a penalty sometimes, a tax others, takes aim at the foundations of jurisprudence. If words have no meaning, law has no meaning.

Instead, Roberts reinterpreted the text by fiat and usurped the legislative power of the Congress. If the Congress was passing a tax, it was apparently news to them. This retroactive designation of a “penalty” as a “tax” displayed a breathtaking disregard for not just law—but our common understanding of language that creates it. It also opens the door wide to endless Congressional machinations to compel purchase of anything, for any reason, under the newly elastic “tax” definition.

As for the claims of a “silver lining” in the decision for conservatives, this is absurd. Freedom in America didn’t win any battle against federal power in the Obamacare decision– it barely escaped complete annihilation. It tells us much about our own sad expectations of liberty that we are expected to celebrate that the Congress cannot compel us to do literally whatever it wants under the commerce clause.

Conservatives passively accept the tidal wave of federal overreach let loose by Wickard vs. Filburn. If the politics were reversed, Democrats would bring endless challenges to overturn commerce clause decisions. And US vs. Lopez, cited multiple times in the ACA opinion, has already established limits to regulating commerce. There was nothing worthwhile gained in the ACA decision for those who value freedom and limited government, and much was lost.

That this could force more honest discussions of future “regulation” as de facto taxes will prove irrelevant to the broader economic implications at work here. Unless Republicans win in November and repeal Obamacare, we will have added another massive entitlement onto the crushing welfare state, shoving us closer to national insolvency. The Democrat statists will get their ultimate wish of a European-style single-payer healthcare. And in the meantime, we will all get used to waiting months for healthcare or receiving outright denials from surly, unaccountable government bureaucrats.

Then one day, when the government has collapsed the healthcare system as we know it, that same government will swoop in to save us. At that point, socialism will have ceased to be a dirty word in America, because it will be our reality.

Comments (26)

  • joarivera
    Posted on July 14, 2012 at 3:07pm

    It was shocking to find out that SCOTUS had decided to uphold the ACA instead of striking down this law. It doesn’t make sense how Congress can tax inactivity. It seems that this country is heading in the wrong direction. The US will no longer be a country to be proud of, but to be ashame of. We are creating a country of lazy people who want everything handed down to them instead of working for it.

    Report this comment

    joarivera  
  • cemerius
    Posted on July 3, 2012 at 7:53am

    November 6th 2012 will be the time for We The People to rise to the occasion!!!! Vote the progressives OUT and after the dust settles FORCE the new Congress to install TERM LIMITS!!!

    Report this comment

    cemerius  
  • Stew57
    Posted on July 2, 2012 at 11:49pm

    When justice can not be found in the highest court in the land the citizenry are doomed. We are doomed to be slaves to a government of limitless power. Ackard v Filmore, Kelo v New London, and now this.

    If the populous is more desirous of that which can come from the government and taken from others, and is willing to trade that which they have been endowed with from above (liberty) for those things, we will be slaves to the government with little hope of rescue, until such times that good men see that the tree of liberty is in need of the sprinkling with the blood of patriots and tyrants once again.

    Report this comment

    Stew57  
  • blair152
    Posted on July 1, 2012 at 2:08pm

    Yes, it is. The good news? When the Supreme Court declared it a tax, and therefore, constitutional, Chief
    Justice Roberts said that it’s up to the voters to change it.

    Report this comment

    blair152  
    • TEXASGRANNY73
      Posted on July 2, 2012 at 8:17am

      We MUST change the majority in the Congress. What one justice did is incomprehensible and not justifiable except in his own mind. I wonder what it would feel like as to be the most hated man in America even more so than Obama. At least we knew Obama and Pelosi Hillary and Reid plus their herd mentality driven sidekicks are out to screw us and have. But we didn’t expect to be betrayed. We also know the Supreme Court. Breyer and Ginsburg (ACLU) believe in International law (UN) Sotomayor an Obama appt. who had to be helped through the process by Lindsay Graham would all be expected to be political and do not let the Constitution get in the way of voting liberal left. No matter the reasoning by Roberts in my opinion he betrayed all of us and made himself irrelevent in the future. Who I ask would ever trust this man again to do the right thng??????? Not I said this citizen. Similar to the “definition of what is is”. Slick.and now irrelevent.

      Report this comment

      TEXASGRANNY73  
    • Polwatcher
      Posted on July 2, 2012 at 2:50pm

      Please note that John Roberts’ mind is not blinded by stupid liberal dreams. What he did was carefully executed betrayal of the USA. Obama and the MSM made him feel unloved and he gave in to them.

      It is important to understand history in order to realize what works and what does not work. Ignoring history is an invitation to disaster. John Roberts not only ignored his oath as a judge but he invited disaster.

      Government run city and county hospitals were tried in the 30′s, 40′s, and 50′s and they worked fine until they became so incompetant that everyone became affraid to go to these hospitals. Then private hospitals took over and we have had excellent health care for workers ever since. Non-workers could use the good hospitals in emerency situations only. Obamacare is set up to convert all private hospitals to government run institutions over time when it is fully implemented. It will likely take around 20 years for Obama hospitals to deteriorate and a new set of private hospitals to emerge. This new set of hospitals will then take over for those that can afford to pay and we will pay double for acceptable health care. The best doctors and hospitals will serve only the wealthy patients while the medicare, welfare, and working class patients will get lumped together and be served by the least competant doctors and hospitals. Obamacare duplicates the UK system. In the UK today, you risk death if you go to a government run hospital. The well off go to private hosp

      Report this comment

      Polwatcher  
    • Stew57
      Posted on July 2, 2012 at 11:52pm

      Too bad he got Holder to mover over so he could borrow the shredder and run the constitution through it to do it

      Report this comment

      Stew57  
  • xena
    Posted on July 1, 2012 at 12:59pm

    Obama has people in the palm of his hand and they are to stupid see the damage he is doing or just care .We need this lier out.

    Report this comment

    xena  
  • SilentReader
    Posted on July 1, 2012 at 4:53am

    If Obamacare stands you can expect a real revolution on your hands.

    I don’t care what it’s called.

    Report this comment

    SilentReader  
  • TeaPartyanimal
    Posted on June 30, 2012 at 6:00pm

    we need 60 votes in senate to repeal. aint gonna happen and republicans will just act sorrowful and say sorry….while john mccain retires with a smile.

    Report this comment

    TeaPartyanimal  
    • jhforsythe
      Posted on June 30, 2012 at 6:54pm

      I understand that we only need 51 votes in the Senate because Obamacare was passed using reconciliation. We are close now. Our problem is Reid blocking anything that we do in the House. Otherwise, I expect that some Dems would crossover and vote against Obamacare.

      Report this comment

      jhforsythe  
    • Constructionist
      Posted on July 1, 2012 at 6:48pm

      My understanding is that calling Obamacare a ‘tax’ changes the voting requirement. Funding issues, such as tax laws, only require a simple majority.

      Report this comment

      Constructionist  
    • happ77
      Posted on July 2, 2012 at 5:20pm

      We only need 51, so we need to get to 50 and
      the White House as the VP would then break the
      tie and the president would sign.
      Roberts should resign.

      Report this comment

      happ77  
  • Larry E
    Posted on June 30, 2012 at 5:44pm

    Judge Roberts says, “You wrote ‘mandate,’ and I know you meant ‘tax.’ Lend me your eraser, will you? There! All fixed!”

    It’s a tax! It’s a mandate! It’s a candy mint! It’s a breath mint! It’s a Stalinist-style takeover (collectivization), of medical care, that’s what it is. Doctors and insurance companies: prepare for a “second serfdom.”

    Citizens, prepare to play children’s games again: “I need to see a doctor. Mother, may I?” “No, you may not. You’ll go to the doctor I SEND you to! 1-2-3 red light!”

    The Supreme Court says, “This law is legal because a magic unicorn flew out of my **** and told me so. You wanna make something of it?”

    Report this comment

    Larry E  
  • gouchrcouch
    Posted on June 30, 2012 at 3:29pm

    We will speak in November! WE have a Heinz 57 in the white house who’es a muslim and not a Americian citizen, lying to the people at every turn, and ………………………

    Report this comment

    gouchrcouch  
  • kabenninger
    Posted on June 30, 2012 at 1:37pm

    This was a travesty. This was treason as far as I’m concerned. To purposefully misconstrue the meaning of this law in order to claim it constitutional was a slap in the face, a stab in the back to the American people.
    And I still do not understand how Interstate Commerce laws can pertain at all. It is my understanding that health care insurance companies cannot sell to people in other states, that they must have physical offices and are licensed in the state they sell their policies. Therefore by definition, that is not INTER.
    I’m even more confused how the SCOTUS can consider anything to do with purchasing insurance or being fined for not purchasing a policy, as a tax.
    The only way we will be able to undo this now is to vote in Romney. But that alone is not enough. We must increase the number of conservatives in the House and win the Senate away from the progressive marxist/fascists who are now in charge.
    After that is done, we may want to think about adding an amendment to our existing constitution making it possible to impeach justices for incompetence or malfeasance. Personally, I know the first five I’d like to start with.

    Report this comment

    kabenninger  
  • kdshell1
    Posted on June 30, 2012 at 10:00am

    One possible plus in this decision that looks irrational is that it removes the threat of nation-wide “community-organized” marches and protests had Obamacare been struck down and therefore quite possibly removes the only excuse for Obama to declare a national emergency and martial law and suspend elections, leaving him in power indefinitely along with his Senate do-nothing-positive buddies. We may actually have an opportunity now to remove him.

    Report this comment

    kdshell1  
    • VernonC
      Posted on June 30, 2012 at 12:30pm

      KDSHELL1 makes it sound like the court was merely mitigating a short term concern, that’s not so, this is as permanent as FDR’s Social Security and LBJ’s Medicare/Medicaid programs, you and your descendants to the end of your line will be harnessed to this so-called Obamacare program no matter any turnover in politicians. The expenses of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, both already near insolvency, will seem like petty change to this odious and monstrous program. Next will come the single payer version and we will be, one and all, slaves to our Washington masters.

      Report this comment

      VernonC  
    • TEXASGRANNY73
      Posted on July 2, 2012 at 8:21am

      This entered my thoughts as well. However there is no excuse for betrayal.

      Report this comment

      TEXASGRANNY73  
  • Just FIX it
    Posted on June 30, 2012 at 8:17am

    You probably didn’t notice – but the government is screaming – IT’S A PENALTY – NOT A TAX !!! – Why ??? Because the government has no right under the Constitution to apply this tax. The Constitution very clearly states that ALL direct taxes must be based on apportionment and this is a direct tax which means that it must be paid by everyone – Opps – Only people displaying BAD BEHAVIOR by not buying health insurance are charged the tax – so it doesn’t measure up under apportionment. The 16th ammendment allows congress the right to assess a tax based on incomes without regard for apportionment…….but this tax has no regard for income !!! So the government has no right anywhere in the Constitution to apply this tax! — Funny that SCOTUS didn’t realize that when they said it’s JUST A TAX !!!

    Report this comment

    Just FIX it  
  • LameLiberals
    Posted on June 30, 2012 at 2:05am

    Romney is our only hope. But if he doesn’t repeal Obamacare or turns out to be another Bush -

    Then it is time to think about PEACEABLY splitting up the USA into several separate countries. States joined the union peaceably and should be able to leave that way also. I will leave everything I own for the opportunity to start over in a Ron Paul Constitution country. Let the RINOs and the liberals split up other sections and their hell holes any way they want.

    Report this comment

    LameLiberals  
  • TeaDestroyer
    Posted on June 29, 2012 at 2:34pm

    no, Romney is the real Bait and Switch. Liberals and progressive have no shame in admitting it. The GOP is making us out to be the Real Useful Idiots with this Rombama Etch-A-Sketch Flip Flop. If these alleged conservative pundits would have stayed in support of the Tea Party/Libertarian candidates we could offer America REAL Hope and REAL change!

    Report this comment

    TeaDestroyer  

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