I
will support legislation that will repeal the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act of 2009 (ObamaCare), including the End the
Mandate Act (H.R. 1101) and legislation similar to it.
There
are many reasons why the individual mandate to purchase insurance is
not constitutional. It is not a tax on an activity; it is a penalty
for failing to purchase health insurance. If the individual mandate
were a tax, it would be an infinite percent tax on a zero-dollar item
or transaction (i.e., the “act” of refraining from
purchasing health insurance). Additionally, the exemptions that have
been granted render this “mandate” not a mandate but
rather a bundle of special favors; that they have been granted
conflicts with the legal principle of equal protection under the law.
Not
only is the act of issuing a health insurance policy not commerce
(as the Supreme Court ruled in 1869), refraining from purchasing
health insurance does not even constitute trade. Without a
constitutional amendment authorizing the federal government to be
involved in the health care industry (except within the District of
Columbia and the overseas territories), the federal government should
have no role in regulating it.
However,
in 1944 the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government has the
authority to regulate insurance (i.e., keep it regular and uninhibited) in pursuance of the Sherman
Antitrust Act, in order to prevent unnatural monopolies in insurance
sales.
Given this authority, and the Obama Administration's admitted desire to work with Republicans to pass legislation that effectively drives down costs but doesn't resort to mandating purchases, I believe that there are many good reasons why the federal government should end the mandate and legalize the interstate purchase of health insurance (thus allowing insurers based in states with low average insurance costs to compete in states with high average costs).
Given this authority, and the Obama Administration's admitted desire to work with Republicans to pass legislation that effectively drives down costs but doesn't resort to mandating purchases, I believe that there are many good reasons why the federal government should end the mandate and legalize the interstate purchase of health insurance (thus allowing insurers based in states with low average insurance costs to compete in states with high average costs).
States
might also wish to further cut insurance costs for patients by
passing legislation providing for their health departments and
bureaus – and health insurance cooperatives within them – to
evolve into worker-consumer wholesale purchasing cooperatives
(providing for a closer and more direct negotiation on prices and
other issues between health workers and patients). Organizing bulk purchasing can, should, and must be done in order to cut costs and to create economies of scale powerful enough to balance the power of sellers, but when the State is more trusted and empowered to do so than the people and their enterprises through the markets, the results tend to be the exact opposite of what was intended.
In
order to improve the delivery of health insurance to people who need
it (whether they are citizens or not), I will urge states to allow
people to purchase real health insurance in the open
marketplace, including affordable basic catastrophic accident and
illness policies, and change of health status insurance.
I
will additionally urge states to refrain from implementing
single-payer systems. Although it is not the federal government's
business to order states to enact this or that policy on health
insurance (besides requiring them to allow trade and competition
across state lines), the monopsony which government single-payer systems wield derives from a special privilege to monopolistically compete in purchasing. Such states' purchase mandates act as regulatory barriers to interstate insurance purchase and sales, thereby driving costs up. I will support the augmentation of
antitrust laws in order to apply to single-payer systems requiring
universal coverage.
Single-payer
is also undesirable because it would require public taxpayer funds to
subsidize the insurance of each and every health customer, including
individuals who want expensive, dangerous, and/or medically
unnecessary procedures. This would undoubtedly create nothing but
more protracted budget battles and ideological in-fighting.
I
do not support any level of government taking steps towards
prohibiting purchase of health insurance by agencies other than
governmental entities; non-governmental alternatives must always
exist, and government must not show preferences for any alternative
through differential taxation.
The
federal government can and should close a tax loophole, by ceasing to
exempt employees from paying taxes on employer-provided health
insurance. This special favor has created financial incentives for
leaving people without health insurance once they lose their jobs and
become unemployed, because it is a benefit for people who stay
employed, and a way to encourage them to refrain from purchasing
outside plans. Although the federal government should eventually stop
taxing earnings altogether, for the time being it should tax all
compensation equally.
For
more entries on commerce, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/economic-policy-for-2012-us-house.html
For
more entries on health care and health insurance, please
visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2012/06/obamacare-and-interstate-commerce.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2012/06/obamacare-and-interstate-commerce.html
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