Attention State Attorneys General: The Health Care Bill Is Constitutional

At last count, 14 state attorneys general had filed suit against the federal government claiming that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that President Obama signed into law on Tuesday is unconstitutional because it includes an individual mandate to buy health insurance. As we've discussed before, a mandate is an essential component of meaningful reform.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum was joined in his suit by 12 other AGs, including representatives from South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, Michigan, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Washington State, Idaho and South Dakota. (Virginia filed an individual suit.) The only Democrat in the crowd is from Louisiana. The lawsuit claims that the health care bill exceeds Congress' reach and imposes on state sovereignty.

Keep in mind that these men (they're all men) are politicians themselves, all elected officials (ok, one was appointed), and they know something about gamesmanship. None of them usually have much chance at being interviewed on national TV. Several of them are currently running for governor or other higher office. So they may have other reasons besides a rabidness they call patriotism for suing the federal government. If that's the case, they may already know this: they are going to lose because the bill is constitutional.

The American Constitution Society's issue brief "Mandatory Health Insurance: Is It Constitutional?" explains why. Written by Simon Lazarus, public policy counsel for the National Senior Citizens Law Center, the brief points out that the Supreme Court ruled as far back as 1944 that insurance can be regulated by Congress under the Commerce Clause. Lazarus goes on to say that Congress is authorized to tax and spend "for the general welfare." Public health certainly sounds like another way of saying general welfare to me.

It is a small percentage of people who will feel the pressure of a mandate; something like 58 percent receive insurance through an employer and another 32 are covered by Medicaid, Medicare or other government programs. In Massachusetts, which instituted a similar model years ago, just 1.3 percent of people opted not to get insurance, according to the brief. All of a sudden, Republicans expect the public to believe that they are wildly concerned about a marginalized one percent? White House domestic policy advisor Melody Barnes points out that similar suits were filed after the passage of Social Security and the Voting Rights Act, so these guys may have just secured their places as the least forward-thinking individuals of this young decade.

This tactic is separate and much quicker than the legally questionable legislation introduced in 38 states -- and passed in Virginia -- that aims to ban federal mandates for citizens within state lines, but it will make an equally impressive fireworks show when it crashes and burns.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons