Say Anything » In Defending Obamacare, Justice Department Doesn’t Draw Distinction Between Health Care And Health Insurance

In Defending Obamacare, Justice Department Doesn’t Draw Distinction Between Health Care And Health Insurance
Rob Port • May 12, 2010
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The Obama administration has begun its legal defense of the health bill, and their opening salvo claims that the bill is in keeping with the Constitution because health care is interstate commerce of the sort covered by the commerce clause.

But there’s a problem. The legal challenge to the bill is based on the federal government’s regulation of health insurance. Not health care. That’s a distinction with a big difference.

Washington (CNN) – The Obama administration has launched its first legal defense of the new health care law, insisting the federal government has the power to force citizens to have health insurance.

“The health care industry operates in interstate commerce and there is a long recognized federal interest in its regulation,” said a legal brief filed in federal court in Detroit, Michigan, by the Justice Department.

The health care industry may be interstate commerce, but health insurance is not. By federal law. In fact, one reform conservatives offered as an alternative to the effective nationalization of health insurance crammed through Congress by Democrats was to allow Americans to buy health insurance coverage across state lines. Which would constitute interstate commerce.

Something that, again, is not going on with health insurance policies now.

But even if health insurance was interstate commerce, one basis for the legal challenge has to do with whether or not the federal government can compel commerce. Meaning is it constitutional for the federal government not to regulate interstate commerce but rather require Americans to engage in interstate commerce at the threat of a fine.

That is, again, a distinction with a big difference.