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Comment by colechristensen | Hacker News Reader

It wasn’t the Trump administration but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals which struck down the mandate as unconstitutional and being liberal and a supporter of health care reform I think they had a point. I can’t see in the constitution where the federal government has the power to force me to buy health insurance. I like my constitutional rights being protected even when the thing being compelled (me having insurance) is a good idea. It means that things which are not quite so good of ideas have less chance of being forced on me later.

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The plaintiffs in the case were several gop attorney generals. Related cases were also carried out by the Trump admin. And several courts had previously upheld that the ACA was constitutional because it does not force you to buy health insurance. It actually just imposed a fine if you didn't and that fine was considered a tax, which Congress has constitutional authority to levy. The GOP forum shopped to get in front of a rubber stamp republican judge.

Additionally, the whole point of these cases was not simply to get rid of the penalty. The idea was to get rid of the penalty so they could go back to the supreme court and again claim that the mandate is unconstitutional because now there is no "tax" associated with it.

I don't know where things are at now, but it seems unlikely to go anywhere now because it would be difficult to argue that buying insurance is required at all at this point. So we are left with the backup gop strategy of hoping that disarming the mandate will simply bankrupt the program. At least until republican voters wake up and realize that the program is miles better than what we had before.

I likewise do not approve of the Feds expanding their powers arbitrarily by declaring the punishment for whatever they wouldn’t otherwise be allowed to enforce “a tax”. Calling the insurance mandate constitutional because the punishment was a “tax” was abusing the intent of the law.

It's pointless to try to draw a distinction here, because you can re-frame the exact same behavior several different ways, some of which are already common, so it doesn't represent any expansion of power. Like, raise taxes by that much and give people with insurance a credit for it, but not those without insurance. Done. No "worse" than e.g. child tax credits, as far as constitutionality. Insisting that the law do some particular word-dance to get to the exact same place isn't productive and doesn't defend liberty.

If you worried about fines being used to deter activities society doesn’t want, and that fine money being collected as tax revenue, you are at least 200 years too late.

Trump's government repealed the individual mandate penalty, and then the court ruled ruled that in it's new form, it no longer qualified as a tax and was unconstitutional. (Not that this meant anything, since the legality of a fee of $0 doesn't matter.)

The court case as a whole argued that because the GOP changed the ACA in a manner that made part of it (the $0 fee) illegal, the entirety of the ACA should be made illegal.

The fifth circuit agreed with some of the arguments in the case (the fee one), but did not practically change anything about the ACA.

And then SCOTUS, surprising ~everyone, ruled that actually the whole of the ACA is constitutional.

Look at this timeline, and you tell me - who spent years trying to re-introduce the free rider problem, and to break the ACA? Congress, the president, and the plaintiff states... or the fifth circuit, which when presented with a singular, narrow question, ruled that a $0 fee (whatever that is) isn't a tax?

Now, as of 2022, we are in a world where the ACA has been thoroughly litigated, and is still here, with the free rider problem hanging like a millstone over its neck.

calling insurance a tax is about as strong an indication of regulatory capture as I can think of.

It should have never been a tax specifically because it's an unconstitutional act. Calling it a tax is the letter vs the spirit of the constitution.

If you and others like yourself want to ensure everyone has health insurance then __make it mandatory for the state to pay for it__. Anything else and you're just taxing the poor for being poor.

I agree with you, but the "tax" is the penalty for not having health insurance. The health insurance itself isn't considered a tax.

> it's an unconstitutional act.

That is an interesting opinion, but at this point, both a conservative, and then a super-conservative, packed-with-federalist-society SCOTUS has disagreed with you twice on this issue (5-4) and then (7-2). It's about as written-in-stone as you can get in the United States.

The courts think this is above-board, the executive thinks this is above-board, most of the public thinks its above-board, it's safe to say its above-board.

As I recall, the whole "call the penalty a tax" thing was Roberts' tortured justification for allowing it in the 5-4 vote. Nobody ever really believed it was a tax.

Slavery was also considered above-board at one point, so...

lets not use that as justification, shall we?

carrying private service X is required for you to exist in the united states. If you don't pay for X, you get fined Y as a punishment.

yep, I'm sure the powers-that-be considering that above-board should be the only justification we need!

> Slavery was also considered above-board at one point, so...

It was also perfectly constitutional[0], hence the need for that 13th amendment. And that civil war thing. As it turns out, the constitution kind of sucks[0], it has a lot of problems with it. Fewer than it did in the past, but we aren't quite at the end of history just yet.

You're going to need a better complaint than 'it's unconstitutional', as this is pretty verifiably constitutional. The people who have been empowered[1] by the founding fathers to determine what is, and what is not constitutional have determined that this is constitutional. It's not a matter of opinion at this point.

> carrying private service X is required for you to exist in the united states.

And that's nothing new. Government can compel all sorts of things from you. Showing up to contribute your labour to a jury duty. Involuntary servitude in the military. Taxing the land you live on. Following emergency orders. Not heading a communist political movement. Every society - even this society - provides you with privileges, and requires obligations from you.

This obligation has been ruled to be well within the legal framework of this society, and if you think it should be outside that legal framework, you should look into passing a constitutional amendment on the subject.

Or, you could believe that this obligation is a constitutional, but bad idea, and have the legislature repeal it. Either way, it's currently constitutional. [0]

[0] You're confusing 'constitutional' with 'just'. They are not the same thing.

[1] Actually, SCOTUS' powers in this sphere are what's unconstitutional[2], but we all close our eyes, and collectively pretend that they are.

[2] You're not going to find anything in either the constitution, or passed legislature granting SCOTUS the incredibly broad powers it currently enjoys. These powers were invented out of thin air, and are backed by neither fiat, nor democratic will. All that the constitution says on the subject is 'We should, like, probably have courts. That should do stuff, maybe.'

stop tilting at windmills,

the question is whether or not the government can force you to pay for a __PRIVATE__ service just for __EXISTING__ within the borders of the US.

There is __NO PRECEDENT__ for this. The closest you can get are things like car insurance where you're required to carry insurance in order to drive on US roads. You can choose not to drive, you cannot choose to "not exist".

That puts this into an entirely different category. The fact that it originally got rationalized as a tax opens a whole different can of worms. Good luck refusing to pay taxes.

I'm entirely willing to accept that it's a bad law (It is, for multiple reasons - unfortunately, the situation without it is even worse), I'm simply drawing the line at claims that it's an illegal law (It's not, it's been pretty thoroughly litigated).

I said unconstitutional, not illegal.

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