September 15, 2009
ObamaCare's big problem: The Constitution
Judge Andrew Napolitano has a brief and lucid guide to the serious constitutional problems with ObamaCare, in the Wall Street Journal today. A Mark Fitzgibbons just noted (below), the Left is in the process of demonizing those who point to inconvenient constitutional strictures on government power. Judge Napolitano notes the expansive interpretations of the interstate commerce clause invented in the New Deal, and writes:
The Supreme Court finally came to its senses when it invalidated a congressional ban on illegal guns within 1,000 feet of public schools. In United States v. Lopez (1995), the Court ruled that the Commerce Clause may only be used by Congress to regulate human activity that is truly commercial at its core and that has not traditionally been regulated by the states. The movement of illegal guns from one state to another, the Court ruled, was criminal and not commercial at its core, and school safety has historically been a state function.Applying these principles to President Barack Obama's health-care proposal, it's clear that his plan is unconstitutional at its core. The practice of medicine consists of the delivery of intimate services to the human body. In almost all instances, the delivery of medical services occurs in one place and does not move across interstate lines. One goes to a physician not to engage in commercial activity, as the Framers of the Constitution understood, but to improve one's health. And the practice of medicine, much like public school safety, has been regulated by states for the past century.
Hat tip: Geert ter Horst