Can Congress Mandate Weight Watchers?

[frazzledgear]

I think my weight is between me, Mrs O, and maybe my Doctor....

That's only true for people living in freedom where they believe the individual owns his own life, not government.

 

[saveliberty]

I think my weight is between me, Mrs O, and maybe my Doctor....

That's only true for people living in freedom where they believe the individual owns his own life, not government.

Maybe the airline your flying on.

 

[Big Fitz]

Don't forget to thank a liberal for our 'freedom'.

Nothing is more evil than "For your own good" tyrants.

 

[saveliberty]

Don't forget to thank a liberal for our 'freedom'.

Nothing is more evil than "For your own good" tyrants.

Prison bunkmates named Bubba has to be close.

 

[percysunshine]

Don't forget to thank a liberal for our 'freedom'.

Nothing is more evil than "For your own good" tyrants.

But wait...when my dad made me mow the lawn 'for my own good', he was right.

Maybe the problem is when 14 year old politicians tell adult citizens something is for their own good, we should get suspcious.

 

[dilloduck]

I'm not sure---I'm still stunned by Bernancke telling the US that the Fed would be willing to lend us more money.

Who the fuck does he think he is ?

scarey

 

[percysunshine]

I'm not sure---I'm still stunned by Bernancke telling the US that the Fed would be willing to lend us more money.

Who the fuck does he think he is ?

scarey

Some guy who is too stupid to run 'Turbo Tax', but is smart enough to run the Treasury and the IRS.

Go figure.

 

[saveliberty]

I'm not sure---I'm still stunned by Bernancke telling the US that the Fed would be willing to lend us more money.

Who the fuck does he think he is ?

scarey

Some guy who is too stupid to run 'Turbo Tax', but is smart enough to run the Treasury and the IRS.

Go figure.

The way I figure it, your talking about Geithner.

 

[Big Fitz]

I'm not sure---I'm still stunned by Bernancke telling the US that the Fed would be willing to lend us more money.

Who the fuck does he think he is ?

scarey

where oh where is the Dennis Green PC meltdown???

 

[ShackledNation]

Don't forget to thank a liberal for our 'freedom'.

Nothing is more evil than "For your own good" tyrants.

I agree. C.S. Lewis has an excellent quote:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

 

[ShackledNation]

I'm not sure---I'm still stunned by Bernancke telling the US that the Fed would be willing to lend us more money.

Who the fuck does he think he is ?

scarey

He's the chairman of a socialist institution, what did you expect?

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Fabulous question. After all, if the entire premise of the individual mandate is that everyone has to have health insurance for their own good…

Idiotic question – that’s not the premise of the IM – it’s a regulatory mandate; it’s designed to ensure the insurance pool is as well-populated as possible.

As to Will’s idiotic question:

“Does Congress have the constitutional power to require obese people to sign up for Weight Watchers? If not, why not?”

Judge Sutton addressed this in the Thomas Moore case:

That brings me to the lingering intuition—shared by most Americans, I
suspect—that Congress should not be able to compel citizens to buy products they do
not want. If Congress can require Americans to buy medical insurance today, what of
tomorrow? Could it compel individuals to buy health care itself in the form of an annual
check-up or for that matter a health-club membership? Could it require computer
companies to sell medical-insurance policies in the open market in order to widen the
asset pool available to pay insurance claims? And if Congress can do this in the
healthcare field, what of other fields of commerce and other products?

These are good questions, but there are some answers. In most respects, a
mandate to purchase health insurance does not parallel these other settings or markets.
Regulating how citizens pay for what they already receive (health care), never quite
know when they will need, and in the case of severe illnesses or emergencies generally
will not be able to afford, has few (if any) parallels in modern life. Not every intrusive
law is an unconstitutionally intrusive law. And even the most powerful intuition about
the meaning of the Constitution must be matched with a textual and enforceable theory
of constitutional limits, and the activity/inactivity dichotomy does not work with respect
to health insurance in many settings, if any of them.

The very force of the intuition also helps to undo it, as one is left to wonder why
the Commerce Clause does the work of establishing this limitation. Few doubt that
Congress could pass an equally coercive law under its taxing power by imposing a
healthcare tax on everyone and freeing them from the tax if they purchased
health insurance. If Congress may engage in the same type of
compelling/conscripting/commandeering of individuals to buy products under the taxing
power, is it not strange that only the broadest of congressional powers carves out a limit
on this same type of regulation?

Why construe the Constitution, moreover, to place this limitation—that citizens
cannot be forced to buy insurance, vegetables, cars and so on—solely in a grant of power
to Congress, as opposed to due process limitations on power with respect to all American
legislative bodies? Few doubt that the States may require individuals to buy medical
insurance, and indeed at least two of them have. See Mass. Gen. Laws 111M § 2; N.J.
Stat. Ann. § 26:15-2. The same goes for a related and familiar mandate of the
States—that most adults must purchase car insurance. Yet no court has invalidated these
kinds of mandates under the Due Process Clause or any other liberty-based guarantee of
the Constitution. That means one of two things: either compelled purchases of medical
insurance are different from compelled purchases of other goods and services, or the
States, even under plaintiffs’ theory of the case, may compel purchases of insurance,
vegetables, cars and so on. Sometimes an intuition is just an intuition.

http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/11a0168p-06.pdf

In his ignorance of the law, then, Will contrives an inane premise predicated on conservative dogma: that the ACA manifests some sort of capricious legislative dictate that violates individual liberty.

As Judge Sutton clearly notes, however, nothing could be further from the truth, it is indeed a baseless non-issue.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Idiotic question – that’s not the premise of the IM – it’s a regulatory mandate; it’s designed to ensure the insurance pool is as well-populated as possible.

Because it spreads the risk and lowers the prices. On top of that, you might actually need it someday. How is that not for your own good?

As to Will’s idiotic question:

“Does Congress have the constitutional power to require obese people to sign up for Weight Watchers? If not, why not?”

Judge Sutton addressed this in the Thomas Moore case:

That brings me to the lingering intuition—shared by most Americans, I
suspect—that Congress should not be able to compel citizens to buy products they do
not want. If Congress can require Americans to buy medical insurance today, what of
tomorrow? Could it compel individuals to buy health care itself in the form of an annual
check-up or for that matter a health-club membership? Could it require computer
companies to sell medical-insurance policies in the open market in order to widen the
asset pool available to pay insurance claims? And if Congress can do this in the
healthcare field, what of other fields of commerce and other products?

These are good questions, but there are some answers. In most respects, a
mandate to purchase health insurance does not parallel these other settings or markets.
Regulating how citizens pay for what they already receive (health care), never quite
know when they will need, and in the case of severe illnesses or emergencies generally
will not be able to afford, has few (if any) parallels in modern life. Not every intrusive
law is an unconstitutionally intrusive law. And even the most powerful intuition about
the meaning of the Constitution must be matched with a textual and enforceable theory
of constitutional limits, and the activity/inactivity dichotomy does not work with respect
to health insurance in many settings, if any of them.

The very force of the intuition also helps to undo it, as one is left to wonder why
the Commerce Clause does the work of establishing this limitation. Few doubt that
Congress could pass an equally coercive law under its taxing power by imposing a
healthcare tax on everyone and freeing them from the tax if they purchased
health insurance. If Congress may engage in the same type of
compelling/conscripting/commandeering of individuals to buy products under the taxing
power, is it not strange that only the broadest of congressional powers carves out a limit
on this same type of regulation?

Why construe the Constitution, moreover, to place this limitation—that citizens
cannot be forced to buy insurance, vegetables, cars and so on—solely in a grant of power
to Congress, as opposed to due process limitations on power with respect to all American
legislative bodies? Few doubt that the States may require individuals to buy medical
insurance, and indeed at least two of them have. See Mass. Gen. Laws 111M § 2; N.J.
Stat. Ann. § 26:15-2. The same goes for a related and familiar mandate of the
States—that most adults must purchase car insurance. Yet no court has invalidated these
kinds of mandates under the Due Process Clause or any other liberty-based guarantee of
the Constitution. That means one of two things: either compelled purchases of medical
insurance are different from compelled purchases of other goods and services, or the
States, even under plaintiffs’ theory of the case, may compel purchases of insurance,
vegetables, cars and so on. Sometimes an intuition is just an intuition.

http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/11a0168p-06.pdf

In his ignorance of the law, then, Will contrives an inane premise predicated on conservative dogma: that the ACA manifests some sort of capricious legislative dictate that violates individual liberty.

As Judge Sutton clearly notes, however, nothing could be further from the truth, it is indeed a baseless non-issue.

Do you really think that just because Congress might be able to get away with it if they did something else we should allow them to get away with it when they do it wrong? If life worked that way why did the judge in the Roger Clemons case declare a mistrial? After all, if the prosecution had waited the defense might have brought up the same conversation anyway, so there was really nothing wrong with the government doing it first.

The fact that you use that particular argument to support your position shows how utterly and completely ignorant you are about the law. Let me try to some this up for you in concepts that do not strain your brain.

The argument that states can do it, and that proves that the federal government can do it, has never made it in any court before. No one doubts that states could pass a law prohibiting anyone from carrying a weapon in a school zone. In fact, a few states actually have done so, and those laws are constitutionally valid. Yet, for some obscure reason, the same court that ruled that states can do weird things like that also ruled that the federal government does not have power, authority, or constitutional grounds, to do.

If I thought you were a real lawyer I would contact the bar association and demand they investigate you for incompetence. Anyone as stupid as you are would screw up anything he tried to do for a client.

 

[Douger]

If they take the tax revenue and provide unlimited health care, with prescriptions included, YES. Until then they can fuck off.