| By Clem Guttata
There's about a dozen or so Republican Attorney Generals around the country engaged in political posturing, wasting their taxpayers money in a frivolous lawsuit against the Federal government's enactment of the healthcare insurance reform legislation.
The thrust of their justification is that a federal mandate to purchase health insurance oversteps the constitution as envisioned by our "the founding fathers."
I never found "founding father" arguments to be all the convincing--you can look no further than slavery, limited suffrage, and the sedition acts for ways they got it wrong--and this one is definitely floating on a leaky ship. As P. J. O'Rourke points out, the founding fathers did indeed know a thing or two about health insurance mandates with fines for non-compliance:
In July, 1798, Congress passed, and President John Adams signed into law "An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen," authorizing the creation of a marine hospital service, and mandating privately employed sailors to purchase healthcare insurance.
This legislation also created America's first payroll tax, as a ship's owner was required to deduct 20 cents from each sailor's monthly pay and forward those receipts to the service, which in turn provided injured sailors hospital care. Failure to pay or account properly was discouraged by requiring a law violating owner or ship's captain to pay a 100 dollar fine.
This historical fact demolishes claims of "unprecedented" and "The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty..."
Perhaps these somewhat incompetent attorneys general might wish to amend their lawsuits to conform to the 1798 precedent, and demand that the mandate and fines be linked to implementing a federal single payer healthcare insurance plan.
The other option is to name Presidents John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison et al. in the lawsuits. However, it might be difficult to convince a judge, or the public, that those men didn't know the limits of the Constitution.
Of course, neither history nor logic are the Republican party's strong point these days. I'm just thankful we have a Democratic Attorney General here in West Virginia who can be counted on to not only ignore the wasteful lawsuits of his Republican counterparts, but also to vigorously enforce the new health insurance reforms.
(h/t desmoinesdem) |
