Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
If you're so convinced that Obama, Reid and Pelosi are right, and its perfectly constitutional to FORCE people to buy insurance, please tell me how.
I'll gladly admit I'm wrong once I actually understand how its supposed to work.
You can even make use of your esteemed law degree.
I'll throw this at you. If you can force people to buy insurance, can you force them to start eating a low-fat diet or stand at risk of paying fines?
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I'm no constitutional scholar, not my area of expertise and I've never claimed that it was. I have a solid understanding of the case law and the basics of the whole thing, but to be honest I haven't paid all that much attention to the details of this bill as I have a real job that involves entirely separate areas of law and it's been quite busy. You can see my previous post where I said that I don't claim that there is no possible argument against the constitutionality of the bill if you'd like, it was directed at you. Arguing against an argument that is simply a conclusion based on an inaccurate understanding of basic constitutional law (as doglover was making) doesn't mean I've deemed the bill 100% free of challenge.
What I will argue is that threats of lawsuits that fall on party lines are not an indication of unconstitutionality, and that the architect of this bill is highly versed in constitutional law. I'll defer to that for the time being, if you can direct me to the actual legal merits of the proposed challenges (not just the clauses) it would be helpful.
Not my analysis obviously, but here is an argument supporting the constitutionality. There are additional supporting articles linked at the bottom of the page.
http://www.acslaw.org/node/15619
Sorry to keep editing, but this article (linked from the previous one) by Erwin Chemernisky, widely regarded as the go to guy for Con law issues is particularly on point to your question.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28620.html