The Constitutionality of the New Health Care Bill - Essay Example

The Constitutionality of the New Health Care Bill Introduction The fundamental focus on the healthcare bill had and has always been the mandate that an individual holds over his choices. The focus of the debate that has ensued since the overhaul of the health system has been the controversial provision that will ultimately require everyone to have healthcare policy by the year 2014. In their defense for this provision, the supporters of the law contend that it is a necessary provision to ensure that the pool of insured individuals is expanded, so that private health insurers can also cover persons with medical conditions that are pre-existent (Jones 43). This seems like such a noble course that any administration would want to take up. The contention that has arisen is the question that the panels of legal experts at the judiciary committee hearings is whether any arm of the government, in this case, whether Congress has any powers under section 8, Article I, of the Constitution, to force people to take up a health policy. There are those who think that Congress has legitimate authority to do this on one side, while on the other, there are those who are convinced that this move is not constitutional or lacks the constitutional mandate to be supported. One clear opposition for the health care bill comes for Senator Grassley of Iowa. According to him the overhaul of the healthcare system would cause major problems, among them being the question of an individual’s mandate. Up until now, there are four district court judges who have made rulings as to the merits of the overhaul of health care. Two judges appointed by Republican presidents have struck down the entire law, including the mandated provisions on one hand, on the other; two judges appointed by Democratic presidents have upheld the law as being constitutional. The question remains is it really unconstitutional. The Constitutionality Question This paper endeavors to reveal the unconstitutionality of the bill. The fundamental reason that this paper presents this position is based on the fact that the individual mandate of the law is within the legal bounds of the powers of Congress under the clause of commerce. This is based on the argument that insurance of a person’s health would generally qualify as a rule of commerce. Under the constitutions’ commerce clause, Congress has the power to set rules that would govern commercial activities. There is a proposition that has been put forward by those claiming that the bill is unconstitutional because individual mandate can be objected. It is based on this argument that opposition to the health care bill has been found. It is argued that there is no way Congress should have the power to regulate how an individual makes the decision to purchase or not to purchase health care policies. However, the provisions of the Constitution do not prevent or limit the powers and mandates of Congress. There is no law constitutional or otherwise that in text or common law or any other doctrine that limits the extent to which Congress can regulate any activity. This fact that Congress can require every American citizen to purchase insurance for health from a private company, more so penalize those who do not do this. Under the commerce clause that has been raised above, Congress has the power to regulate commerce in several states. It should be noted that the legislative branch of the government has the duty to make the laws of the country. Up until now, it remains the only arm of the United States government that existed, albeit in a different form, before the constitution was enacted. It was the view of those who framed the constitution that Congress will be a strong arm of government as compared to the judicial and the executive branches. It is for this reason that the powers of Congress were spelled out in very considerable details. To check Congress, the powers of this arm of government were also checked and limits put upon it to ensure there was a balance in its weight as against the other two arms of the government. It is no wonder that Article I of the Constitution of the United States, the Supreme law of the land, is the longest part of the constitution (Dautrich & Yalof 140). In this Article, the federal powers are provided for. Among these powers are the powers to borrow money, collect taxes, establish offices, declare war, and in this context regulate commerce. The constitution mandates Congress to make the laws that are “necessary and proper” to enable them carry out its specifically granted powers in a broad and modern regulatory authority. This includes the provisions under the commerce clause. It is with this in mind that the issue of insurance could be understood. Historically, insurance contracts have not always been considered as part of commerce. This is because commerce referred only to trade and carriage of merchandise. It is for this reason that insurance has always been regulated by the individual states. However, the Supreme Court has for a long time allowed Congress to prohibit and regulate all sorts of economic activities that have not always, in the strict sense of the word, fell under the terms of commerce. It is because such activities eventually affect interstate commercial activities. It is in the same view that health care insurance can be viewed. This notwithstanding, individual mandate extends the commerce clause powers beyond being an economic activity to being an economic “inactivity”. This remains unprecedented. The taxing powers of Congress has enabled it fund Medicare and Social Security. It has never used its powers to mandate that an individual engage in an economic transaction with a private company, whose goal is to make profit. Compared to third party liability for a motorist, this seems a plausible argument. When a person chooses to drive a car, it would make sense to force him or her to purchase insurance so as to prevent harm being inflicted upon other road users. A second reason why the health care bill may be considered unconstitutional is based on the fact that the House never formally voted for it; as such it never really became law. Under Article I of the constitution of the United States, every bill is required to pass through the House of Representative and the Senate for it to become law. The Article also provides for how the number of votes shall be determined. The bill was passed under the deem and pass procedure advocated by the Rules Committee, so as to avoid a vote that would be separate in Senate, and that several House members would find objectionable but instead vote on the reconciliation bill while simultaneously deem the Senate measure passed. There are several citations that have been given for precedents but none of them is really a constitutional argument. Conclusion There is no doubt that the healthcare system of the United States has a problem (Miller 34). In conclusion, there is need to make the same observation that Justice Roger Vinson, an appointee of President Reagan who serves in Pesacola, Florida who ruled that the key components of the law on health care insurances was unconstitutional and according to him, the whole law and not only the individual mandate provision, should be declared void. In his decision he stated that he reluctantly concludes that Congress had exceeded the bounds of its authority by passing the Act with the individual mandate. He however notes that this was not to say that Congress had no power to address the problems and the inequities that are characteristic of the health care systems of the United States. He observed that given that the health care market made up more than one sixth of the national economy of the country, and was without a doubt part of the national economy, and not state, that Congress should have the power to reform and regulate it as public interest would require. However the principal dispute that arises is the fact about how Congress chose to exercise this power to regulate this part of the economy. Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional, and not severable from the entire law, it should be declared void to the extent of this inconsistency (Shapiro & Shapiro 261). Discuss the Significance of the Election of 2008 In Light Of the 2010 Elections Introduction Realigning election is a term that is used in political science describing a change in the political system that is dramatic. In most cases it is applied to the American elections, and at times to elections in other countries. It usually involves the replacement of one dominant party by another party or the end of a stalemate. There are times realignments are centered on one major election or spread throughout several elections. It is mostly associated with the American national elections where there are sharp changes in issues, the regional and demographic bases of power of the major political parties in the country and party leaders. The realignment theory was first developed in 1955 by Key (Jr.) in his article A Theory of Critical Elections, in which he stated that the American elections, parties and policy making often shift in swift, dramatic sweeps. There are times it also includes changes that are major in the structure and the rules of the political system such as financing and eligibly that results into a new political power and structure. Generally, they separate party systems that are evident in the country. There are instances when realignments in election are sudden. This is a case where there is a specific critical election that serves the basis for that particular realignment. While there are disagreements as to what elections particularly do this, the term is always used arbitrarily. Election Realignment and the 2008 and 2010 Elections Currently there is a debate that exists as to what elections, if any of them, could be considered realigning elections since the 1932 election (Schafer 101). This election is considered the best example for realigning elections and considered by most of the political scientists in the country as the archetypal realigning election. The Great Depression and its miseries that led to the 1929 crash of the economy under President Herbert Hoover, this is when the New Deal was introduced, though others considered the New Deal as a continuation of the previous administration’s energetic but unsuccessful economic policies. It is said that in many ways, it is the legacy of President Roosevelt that still defines the policies that the Democratic Party has forged over the years. During this time the Democrats made a total gain of about 34% gain in just two elections. There are several instances that realigning elections have been proposed. Though without widespread agreement, the 2008 elections saw the Democrats expanding their majorities in the United States Congress. It was in the same year that the Democrats decisively won the presidential elections. There are several political scientists who have attributed this to the 2006 success that the party had and the continued unpopularity of the then President George Bush. By this time, like during the Hoover administration, the Bush’s administration was faced with economic recession and a serious financial crisis. It is for this reason that the 2008 could be said to have been a realigning election with a long lasting impact, as was in the case of the election of Franklin Roosevelt in the 1932 elections and the election of President Ronald Reagan back in 1980. Significantly, it is also worth noting the fete that was pulled by Republicans in the House of Representatives elections of the year 2010 and in the United States Senate elections of the same year. The Republican took up sixty three seats in the House giving them the control in that chamber of Congress as and gained six more seats in the Senate. This was a significant roll back from the gains that the Democratic Party had made over the last four years. Most political attribute this realignment to the continued financial crisis and the frustrating effects of the economic recession that has refused to abate. Moreover, it is said that the 2010 election was a realignment election not only in relation to the 2008 election but relative to the as far back as the 2006 elections. Another factor that has significantly contributed to this situation was the controversial stimulus package and the health care reform bills that the Obama administration fronted. In 2010, the Republicans also took control of twenty nine Governorships out of the available fifty. Though these are not as significant as the results of most of the major realignment elections over the years, it has significant characteristics of a significant electoral phenomenon. Also noteworthy is the fact that the Midwest, which for quite a while has been a solid Democratic Party support base went very strongly to the Republican Party. The significance of the realignment was however not evident in the Pacific Northwest and in California, where the Democratic Party retained its strong hold (Mayhew 19). The most central component of any election realignment is the change that comes within the changing groups. It means the changing or switching of voter preference from one major party to another party. It is sometimes associated also with dealignment, which in contrast is the phenomenon where the voter abandons the party that he or she supports and becomes nonvoting or independent. The United States is highly affected by the ideologies of the parties which define most of the aspects of a voter’s life and as such will always affect the decisions they make. It is for this reason that when there is voter realignment, consequently a realignment election occurs. From the evidence that is readily observable it is clear that the independent voters went for Obama in highly significant numbers mostly because of the economic concerns (Shafner 264). Conclusion It was also mostly because of the resonance that it was an overwhelming and compelling historical moment for the United States. It is the same effect that saw most of the voters from the Republican Party, especially the young voters vote for a Democratic president. This is because between 2006 and 2008, the Republican Party had been damaged to a high extent in the eyes of most of the people who were registered to vote. It is no wonder the 2008 elections could be seen as a realignment election because it saw affected Republicans and libertarians leaning towards a party they were ideally competing against. It is from this realignment that the future of the American voter came out. It is clear that shaped both Congress and the Obama administration over the next two years. The effects of the 2010 mid term elections could be attributed to similar facts. Even though the effect of political realignment was not very significant, most of the characteristics of this election lean towards a realignment election. By the time Americans were going to the polls, the economy had not yet turned around. It was therefore understandable when the crisis led to voters drifting from the Democrats, for the same reasons that they had drifted to them two years earlier. Most of the supporters of Obama felt disappointed on certain issues and policies implemented to address them. In conclusion, it is important to note that while some have suggested that the elections in 2008 were a signal of a fundamental political and elections realignment in the American politics, there is still that relative closeness that has traditionally indicated the paradigm shift. The 2010 elections may not have been significant as to whether this was an illustration of things to come, but the voting patterns, especially by independent voters has indicated that such a political and elections realignment may eventually take hold of the American politics over the next few years. Therefore, while the 2010 elections as compared to the 2008 elections may not have been a significant show of election realignment, the 2010 election revealed a common pattern that is slowly taking shape in the American political arena. Like in the preceding mid term elections, the party that controls the White House lost ground to the opposition. This was the case in 2006 when it was the term of a Republican president, George W. Bush. For instance, the Democrats managed to take five governorships from Republicans on one hand, but the Republicans took eleven governorships from the Democrats. It was the first time since the mid term elections in 2006, that Republicans managed a majority in the House of Representatives (Reiter & Stonecash 17). Works Cited Dautrich, Kenneth & Yalof, David A. American Government: Historical, Popular, and Global Perspectives, Brief Edition, New York: Cengage Learning, 2009 Jones Molly, Health Care for Everyone, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2011 Mayhew, David R., Electoral Realignments: A Critique of an American Genre, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2004 Miller, Robert D., Problems In Health Care Law, Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2006 Reiter, Howard L.& Stonecash, Jeffrey M. Counter Realignment: Political Change in the Northeastern United States Schafer, Byron, “Critical realignment: Dead or alive?” in The End of Realignment, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991 Politics, Parties, and Elections in America, New York: Cengage Learning, 2011 Shapiro, Dya & Shapiro, Ilya, Cato Supreme Court Review, 2009-2010, Massachusetts: Cato Institute, 2010 Read More