Legal Commentary

Lawsuits challenging the new health care law.

?Congress lacks the political will to fund comprehensive health care ? because taxes above those already provided [in federal healthcare programs] would produce too much opposition,? the Virginia lawsuit says.

?The alternative... is to fund universal health care in part by making healthy young adults and other rationally uninsured individuals cross-subsidize older and less healthy citizens,? the suit says.

The seven-page lawsuit presents a straightforward challenge to Congress?s decision to rely on its power to regulate interstate commerce to justify the federal mandate that every individual must have health insurance or pay a penalty.

?It has never been held that the Commerce Clause [of the Constitution] ? can be used to require citizens to buy goods and services,? the suit says. ?To depart from that history to permit the national government to require the purchase of goods and services would deprive the Commerce Clause of any effective limits.?

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Full post as published by Althouse on March 24, 2010 (boomark / email).