Hatch Highlights Constitutional Problems with Healthcare Bill

[zaurakdigis]

What should happen is that people who opt not to buy Health Insurance should sign a waiver saying they will not show up at an ER and demand care. Now a Hospital is require to provide care regardless of insurance. If one can afford insurance they should have it or agree they will not seek Health Care. Note to Orrin:  States are subject to federal law see the 14th Amendment.

[buddy34]

Meanwhile, Virginia's Legislature passed a bill stating that state residents will not be required to pay the federal penalty if they do not buy health insurance, The Wall Street Journal reported. The House in the Utah Legislature passed a similar bill as did the Tennessee State Senate. The Legislatures of Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Dakota are expected to have votes on this legislation in the coming weeks...

[buddy34]

2/24/10: The health care plan proposed by Obama on Monday includes an individual mandate requiring every American to have health insurance despite concerns from Republican lawmakers and other legal experts that the provision is not constitutional. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has called the constitutionality of an individual mandate into question...

[buddy34]

More than 30 state legislators have either passed or are considering legislation that would [not] require residents of their states to buy health insurance...

[buddy34]

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was asked, "President Obama's proposal includes an individual mandate, which many Republicans, including Orrin Hatch, and others, have said is not constitutional. Will the White House have any sort of legal analysis explaining why that is constitutional?" Gibbs said, "I dont know the answer to that. I have not heard anybody discuss the constitutionality of that." ...

[buddy34]

Both the House and Senate bills require individuals to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. The House bill's penalty-payment is a percentage of income, while the Senate sets the penalty as a flat dollar amount or percentage of income, whichever is higher. "The president's proposal adopts the Senate approach and raises the percent of income assessment that individuals pay if they choose not to become insured," the White House plan released on Monday says...

[buddy34]

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the federal government has never before mandated that Americans buy any good or service. In 1994, when Congress was considering a universal health care plan formulated by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, the CBO studied the plan's provision that would have forced individuals to buy health insurance...

[buddy34]

The CBO stated: "A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States...

[buddy34]

...An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government." ...