Raistlin

Argh, I need sleep, but I just found this so now I need to post/rant about it.

After the Obama-supported healthcare bill (obnoxiously referred to as "Obamacare") was passed, immediately organizations across the nation filed suit. Their main complaint is one portion of the bill's is regarding the law's requirement that if you don't get healthcare, you have to pay the government. The government said this penalty/tax/whatever power is justified under the Commerce Clause.

The first of these decisions is in from Michigan, which upheld the law as constitutional. The biggest problem is the horrifying reasoning the court uses (I haven't read the opinion myself yet, but Volokh Conspiracy is a well-known lawyers' blog, and they're generally reliable):

If the mere possibility that you might purchase a similar service somewhere else is enough to count as “activity” and therefore regulable under the Commerce Clause, then almost any regulatory mandate would be permissible. For example, a requirement that each citizen purchase a gym club membership and exercise for one hour per day could be defended on the basis that, otherwise, people will be less healthy, which will make it more likely they will spend more money on medical care, health insurance, and perhaps other forms of exercise.

The opinion also claims that the Commerce Clause covers “economic decisions” as well as “economic activity.” “Economic decisions,” by this reasoning include decisions not to engage in economic activity. That, however, would allow the Commerce Clause to cover virtually any decision of any kind. Pretty much any decision to do anything is necessarily a decision not to use the same time and effort to engage in “economic activity.” If I choose to spend an hour sleeping, I necessarily choose not to spend that time working or buying products of some kind.

I am pretty damn certain that type of baseless reasoning, which effectively nullifies any restrictive power of the Commerce Clause, will be reversed, at least the Supreme Court level (the 5 conservatives are justifiably wary of extensions of Commerce Clause power -- if there's one good thing Rehnquist [the last Chief Justice] did, it's leading a solid block of the Court to striking down a lot of this crap).

Balko has an understandable response to this district court's reasoning:

For those of you who support this ruling: Under an interpretation of the Commerce Clause that says the federal government can regulate inactivity, can you name anything at all that the feds wouldn’t have the power to regulate?

Two more opinions are due out anytime now, from Florida and Virginia (and neither of those will be bound at all by the Michigan district court's decision). I'm pretty sure those will end up differently.