The Founding Fathers' "Individual Mandate"

[Joanne98]

More than a dozen state attorneys general have filed suit claiming the healthcare reform bill passed last week is unconstitutional. The focus of their charge is the individual mandate--the provision in the law that requires everyone to have health insurance. The attorneys general argue that Congress has no power to make people buy something from a private company. The lawsuit filed by Florida asserts that the mandate is an "unprecedented encroachment on the liberty of individuals."

But the individual mandate is not really so unprecedented. In fact the founding fathers adopted the first "individual mandate" back in 1792. It required individuals to outfit themselves with guns and ammunition, even if they had to buy those items from private sellers.

The mandate was included in a series of laws known as the Militia Acts. Early Americans were were fearful of a standing army so they relied on ordinary citizens organized into state militias to fight off Natives and invading armies. States however couldn't always be counted on to send their militias to help out other states. Comity was an unreliable basis for national security. And ordinary citizens couldn't always be relied upon to have the equipmemt they would need to be an effective fighting force.

Congress sought to rectify these problems by passing federal legislation. In the first Militia Act, Congress gave the President authority to call out the militias and imposed penalties on any militiaman who refused to obey orders. In the second Militia Act, Congress included an individual mandate: all free, able-bodied male citizens between the ages of 18 and 45 "shall, within six months . . . provide himself with a good musket or firelock" or "a good rifle." All men of age were also ordered to equip themselves with ammunition and "a knapsack" to carry supplies. Many citizens already had these items. Those who didn't had to go out and buy them, like it or not, presumably from a private seller.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-winkler/the-founding-fathers-indi_b_523001.html

[bemildred]

1. This why it needs to be a tax-funded government program.

The governments ability to tax and provide health-care is well established.

[ixion]

2. This is as bad as neocons using WW II to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq

seriously.

[Ozymanithrax]

3. The militia acts show clearly that individaul mandates go back to...

the foundation of the country. In a court controled by pepole who believe in original intent, it is a sound argument. (http://www.constitution.org/mil/mil_act_1792.htm) A court case isn't won with one precedent. There are others.

States fighting healthcare law don't have precedent on their side
Conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy joined a 6-3 ruling that said Congress could regulate marijuana that was neither bought nor sold on the market but rather grown at home legally for sick patients.

They said the Constitution gave Congress nearly unlimited power to regulate the marketplace as part of its authority "to regulate commerce."

Even "noneconomic local activity" can come under federal regulation if it is "a necessary part of a more general regulation of interstate commerce," Scalia wrote.

The decision throws up a significant hurdle for the lawsuit filed last week in federal court by 13 state attorneys -- all but one a Republican. The Virginia attorney general filed a similar, but separate suit.

I think it is great that Conservative Dickweeds who oppose health care will be hoisted on a petard erected, in part, by their own favorite Conservative Dickweeds.

[teknomanzer]

4. Way to make a lame point...

One problem with this as a precedent. The US government no longer uses militias. Most likely because they were unreliable. Whether the individual mandate is constitutional or not the fact remains -- THIS WILL FAIL. Private insurance companies are not reliable either. The mandate without the public option was just wrong.