BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR . . .

Yesterday, the Pennsylvania Attorney General announced that he will join the Attorneys General from about 12 other states in challenging the constitutionality of the new health care reform act. In effect, they are challenging the right of the federal government to mandate that everyone buy health care insurance – a private product. Now, I have long held that the government should not have the right to mandate such purchases, but it is settled law that they do.

If I want to drive a car, I am mandated, by the state, to buy auto insurance at whatever rates the insurance company chooses to charge. If I want to practice Medicine, it is mandated by the state that I purchase malpractice insurance or I cannot practice in Pennsylvania (among other states). I don’t like either of these mandates, but they are the law, they have been upheld by the courts, and I must fulfill these requirements.

I believe that if any government mandates such coverage, it should be provided to everyone, equally, by the government, much in the way that Social Security and Medicare are today, and that mandating the purchase of a private product is both wrong and unconstitutional. If, however, the Attorneys General want to make the case that one mandate (health insurance) is unconstitutional, then they must make the case for ALL such mandates, otherwise, their only goal would be to publicize the Republican position and waste more of the taxpayers’ money in frivolous litigation that has no hope of success.

Either ALL such mandates are unconstitutional or none are. Take your pick but remember;

“Be careful what you wish for . . .”