It is a pleasant coincidence to be in the midst of my Constitutional Law studies regarding State power in American Federalism and reading about the Supremacy Clause. The reason I bring this up is all over the national and local news regarding the passage of the landmark health-care legislation this past March 21, 2010. What I find so interesting is that a few State Attorney generals intend on challenging the new legislation on what appears to be primarily based upon whether or not it violates the Constitution. It seems that the angle is the “Individual Mandate” provisions requiring all citizens to have some form of insurance coverage. From a certain point of view, this puts the government in the business of forcing people into private business transactions with insurance companies. Who takes well to being forced into something like this right? Well what is the interesting counter point is that a person who has opted out of coverage and then needs the services of a hospital can and usually does go straight to the emergency room where the American tax paying citizen foots the bill. That should not sit too well with the American tax payer. So the “Individual Mandate” imposes a tax on those who refuse to secure coverage and this reasonably and quite fairly casts a nice net on the folks out there who think nothing of ripping cash off that governmental money tree that apparently exists. I say right on. In my experience, money doesn’t grow on trees and as individuals, as countrymen and women, we need to do the right thing instead of the easy self serving thing.
Back to the books.