On October 23rd, a CNSNews reporter asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”
Speaker Pelosi shook her head and before moving on to another question replied: “Are you serious? Are you serious??”
Both the House and Senate healthcare bills include provisions that require all legal residents of the U.S. to purchase health insurance. In the entire history of the United States the federal government has never mandated that Americans buy any good or service.
Yesterday, at a press conference on Capitol Hill, CNSNews asked Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), “What part of the Constitution do you think gives Congress the authority to mandate that individuals have to purchase health insurance?”
“Well, I just think the Constitution charges Congress with the health and well-being of the people,” Sen. Lincoln eventually answered.
“You’re saying ‘the health and well-being’. What area, though, does that fall under?” the reporter asked. “The health and well-being of the people of the country,” she replied. Of course, the words “health” and “well-being” do not appear anywhere in the Constitution.
The constitutionality of this unprecedented mandate has been questioned by, among others, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “If that is held constitutional--for them to be able to tell us we have to purchase health insurance--then there is literally nothing that the federal government can’t force us to do,” said Hatch. “Nothing.”
James Madison said that “if men were angels, no government would be necessary and if angels governed men, no limits on government would be necessary. Because neither men nor the governments they create are angelic, government and limits on government are both necessary for ordered liberty. Politics may tell us what we want to do, but the Constitution tells us what we may do and we must keep those separate. The ends do not justify the means for one simple reason – liberty. Liberty requires limits on government power, it always has and it always will.”
The public option provison may be gone, but this healthcare bill is seriously flawed at its very heart. It is symptomatic of the fact that we are at a desperate place where we must unequivocally commit ourselves to re-anchoring our Republic to the original document which defined it – the Constitution.
Yes, Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Lincoln. Seriously.
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They all need to go home for the holiday and first read the constitution, then read the bill they are trying to cram down our throats.
ReplyDeleteIt is time for Arkansans to show Blanche that we are serious about firing her from her current job.
ReplyDeleteFantastic and response.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that a reporter made any reference to the U.S. constitution is news, in itself.