Awaiting a ruling

Just a quick update to say that I’m excited for tomorrow’s Supreme Court ruling on the challenges to the PPACA (Obamacare). I’m a nerd, and currently a law nerd; I know.


Still, this represents one of those cases where a perfectly good and desirable outcome – everyone having healthcare – can be gotten through a means that is deleterious. There are ways to ensure universal healthcare (though maybe not obtainable politically) that would ensure its constitutionality. Instead, some individuals let an end goal we can all probably sympathize lead them down a path from which there is probably no return.

If you can be forced to purchase healthcare because it affects everyone, you can probably be forced to purchase or consume certain foods (broccoli being the one most named) because that too is used by and affects everyone, especially after healthcare is federalized. And what about voting? Elections affect everyone and national elections certainly affect interstate commerce. Can we be forced to vote? I would argue that the answer to all three (healthcare, food and voting) should be answered in the negative. Allow for the mandatory healthcare, however, and I see no line that requires exclusion of food and voting.

Maybe those two wouldn’t happen today, but without a line they could, and in all likelihood would, eventually happen.