BGFalcons82;863559 wrote:I heard a good one today regarding your first point. Health insurance was not and is not available for purchase across state lines. One of the Left's tenets that they claim makes Obamakare Constitutional is the fact that health care falls under the never-ending auspices of what we know as, "The Commerce Clause". Now, by definition, The Commerce Clause is for interstate commerce. Since Obamakare is not portable between states, then how in the hell is this covered by The Commerce Clause which regulates commerce between states?
Ironically, the R's are FOR purchase of heath insurance across state lines, thus entering into The Commerce Clause sphere of influence.
Under a Justice Thomas style view of the Commerce Clause, which you adhere to, it is unlikely that Congress has the power to regulate insurance. In 1869, Paul v. Virginia the SCOTUS first ruled that Issuing an insurance policy was not commerce and therefore that it was beyond the regulation of commerce. It wasn't until U.S. v. Southeastern Underwriters in 1945 (when they were expanding the scope of the commerce clause to unconscionable heights in the conservative view) that the Court determined that Congress could indeed regulate insurance transactions. In the Aftermath, Congress, in perhaps a bold propping up of State's Rights at the time, passed the McCarran-Ferguson Act which exempted the insurance business from most federal regulation and left it to the states.
So, if you're going to say that Congress has the authority to regulate health insurance, you're going to have to accept a broader view of the commerce clause and federal regulatory authority or be left with the more protectionist state based system we have now that might be more constitutionally pure under a strict constructionist view but has, at least in the minds of libertarian types/cato (and IMHO as well fwiw) contributed to the cost problems in our health insurance markets.
But finally, under BHO's health care law, you will be able to purchase insurance from an out of state insurance company through the federally regulated exchanges. They say they have to be in a regulated federal exchange because otherwise there may be a concern that the insurance companies would be cherry picking people in their new state markets.
