For what it's worth, I think it would be worth having a vigorous constitutional argument about capitalism. A free society is only free because its people, rather than its government, are sovereign, and it only needs a Constitution to protect individual liberty from encroachment by the government. As Prof. Epstein demonstrates, that is what our Constitution does. But this is the antithesis of President Obama's vision of a new Constitution (or a new Bill of Rights) that proclaims what government must do for you rather than what it cannot do to you. Alas, as I've discussed before, while that sounds admirable it is monstrous, since government has nothing to give — it can do for one only by taking from another. If that is to be our system, we are no longer free.
Healthcare is not and has never been a "right." Why are we so afraid to say that? When the other side says, "Healthcare is a right," I want to say, "What healthcare? Abortion? Botox? 'Preventive' care?" What other "rights" do you have that I am required to pay for? A house? A job? A day at the beach? Since when? Only in Washington will those questions get you expelled from polite company. The American people are ready to have them asked and to have a real debate about them — not a 2000-page power-grab in the dark of the night before Christmas.
Epstein's article is here:
In effect, the onerous obligations under the Reid Bill would convert private health insurance companies into virtual public utilities. This action is not only a source of real anxiety but also a decision of constitutional proportions, for it systematically strips the regulated health-insurance issuers of their constitutional entitlement to earn a reasonable rate of return on the massive amounts of capital that they have already invested in building out their businesses.In order to make out this argument, let me proceed as follows. In part I, I shall give a general overview in order to place in context the system of health-care regulation that shall be operated through the State Exchanges that would be formed under the Reid Bill. In part II, I shall give a detailed analysis of some of the major provisions of the Reid Bill. In part III, I shall give a brief analysis of the economic assumptions that underlie the Reid Bill, and the way in which they are likely to lead to extensive price fixing. In part IV, I shall flesh out the constitutional implications of the above analysis. I shall then close with a brief conclusion, which recommends that the Reid Bill be scrapped.
McCarthy also links to Rivkin and Casey:
Federal legislation requiring that every American have health insurance is part of all the major health-care reform plans now being considered in Washington. Such a mandate, however, would expand the federal government’s authority over individual Americans to an unprecedented degree. It is also profoundly unconstitutional.
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