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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (99549)2/8/2011 9:17:49 AM
From: TideGlider2 Recommendations  Respond to of 224744
 
A true garbage "opinion" of a someone who dreams of total government control. A scary person.



To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (99549)2/8/2011 11:35:41 AM
From: Bill2 Recommendations  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 224744
 
Tribe is merely laying out the administration's appeal, since he probably believes they are too incompetent to do it properly themselves. I doubt it will sell, as the task of proving it constitutional is too far fetched.



To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (99549)2/8/2011 5:56:33 PM
From: Bill4 Recommendations  Respond to of 224744
 
"This distinction is illusory. Individuals who don't purchase insurance they can afford have made a choice to take a free ride on the health care system. They know that if they need emergency-room care that they can't pay for, the public will pick up the tab."

What is illusory is Tribe's logic. If a person can afford the insurance, he can afford to pay for the e-room visit.

He ought to be embarrassed using this silly logical contradiction to make his point.



To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (99549)2/9/2011 5:32:27 PM
From: TimF2 Recommendations  Respond to of 224744
 
...Tribe's op-ed, as I wrote in the first post, rests very heavily on misrepresenting the Supreme Court's commerce power doctrine as referring to "commercial choices." In fact, the cases refer to "commercial activities," and a switch from "activity" to "choice" is immensely important in the health care litigation, in which opponents stress that the failure to buy insurance is inactivity, not activity, and therefore beyond even the broadest interpretations the Supreme Court has ever given to the Commerce Clause.

Tribe attempted to skew opinion by substituting "choice" for "activity," and I have called him on that. But I need to go further, because someone who uses words to get things done needs to be kept honest not only about shifting from one word to another, but also about changing the meaning of the same from case to case...

althouse.blogspot.com

JohnF says:

The pro-mandate people seem to have arguments of these forms:

1. The Commerce Clause is not limited to the regulation of “activity,” but covers regulation of inactivity as well.

2. The Commerce Clause is limited to regulation of “activity,” but declining to buy insurance is an activity.

3. The Commerce Clause is limited to regulation of “activity,” but since everyone participates in the health care industry at some time or other, and the health care industry is interstate commerce, the mandate is just one aspect of regulating everybody’s activity in interstate commerce.

The anti-mandate forces say of each:

1. All precedents about the Commerce Clause speak of regulating activity; none say that regulating inactivity is appropriate.

2. Tribe makes this argument by changing the words activity and inactivity to “choice.” No precedent supports this view at all.

3. This is an attractive argument except for the fact that it does not represent what Congress did. It did not condition one’s participation in the health care industry as a patient upon one’s having an insurance policy. It required the policy whether you participated or not. It could have conditioned one’s use of the health care industry on any number of things, including owning a policy, but for whatever reason it did not. Yet.

volokh.com