According to Snopes, the following is correctly attributed to Michael Connelly, Retired Attorney. snopes.com: Michael Connelly on the Constitutionality of Health Care Reform A question many of us are asking... Is this healthcare thing constitutional? A retired Constitutional lawyer has read the entire proposed healthcare bill. Read his conclusions. This is stunning! The Truth About the Health Care Bill by Michael Connelly, Ret. Constitutional Attorney Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected. To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession. The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business, and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats, and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled by the government. However, as scary as all of that is, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed. The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people, and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn't have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with! I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care. This legislation also provides for access, by the appointees of the Obama administration, of all of your personal Healthcare direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures.. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide. If you decide not to have healthcare insurance, or if you have private insurance that is not deemed acceptable to the Health Choices Administrator appointed by Obama, there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a tax instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn't work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the due process of law. So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much, out the original ten in the Bill of Rights, that are effectively nullified by this law. It doesn't stop there though. The 9th Amendment that provides: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people; The 10th Amendment states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control. I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to "be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution." If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it, without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway, I would hope the American people would hold me accountable. For those who might doubt the nature of this threat, I suggest they consult the source, the US Constitution, and Bill of Rights. There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us. Michael Connelly Retired attorney, Constitutional Law Instructor Carrollton , Texas
According to Snopes, the following is correctly attributed to Akhil Reed Amar, Yale Law Professor. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/connelly.asp Constitutional objections to Obamacare don't hold up: The federal government has clear authority to regulate interstate commerce, levy taxes and protect human rights, all part of the proposed healthcare overhaul. January 20, 2010 Critics of Obamacare are now upping the ante, claiming that its basic outlines are not just unwise but unconstitutional. I'm no healthcare expert, but I have spent the last three decades studying the Constitution, and the current plan easily passes constitutional muster. It's true that the Constitution grants Congress authority to legislate only in the areas enumerated in the document itself. Other matters are left to the states under the 10th Amendment. But if enumerated power does exist, the 10th Amendment objection disappears. Under the interstate commerce clause of Article I, activities whose effects are confined within a given state are to be regulated by that state government, or simply left unregulated. But the federal government is specifically empowered to address matters that have significant spillover effects across state lines or international borders. Federal regulation makes obvious sense if the interstate or international issue involves trade or navigation. But the founders authorized Congress to act even in situations that did not involve explicit markets, so long as the activities truly crossed state lines or national borders. Today, that power properly extends to regulating such things as air pollution that wafts across state lines or endangered species that migrate across borders. In line with this broad understanding, George Washington signed a law preventing Americans from committing even non-economic crimes on Indian lands because such activities did indeed involve "commerce . . . with the Indian tribes." The healthcare bill clearly addresses activities that cross state lines. These activities are often economic in nature. Currently, workers with preexisting medical conditions may be unable to accept job offers originating in another state -- a reality that clogs the free interstate flow of goods and services. Other Americans relocate to states with better public health benefits, creating interstate races to the bottom as states worry about becoming "welfare magnets." Some grandparents now refrain from visiting their out-of-state grandchildren because of anxieties about out-of-network healthcare delivery systems. Obamacare addresses all of these matters of interstate commerce.
Amar also uses the analogy of air pollution and endangered species (which you conveniently omitted) to make his point: Apples and oranges! Not even remotely close to a valid argument.
For the sake of argument, let's say we can take what both Connelly and Amar have written here at face value, and that both have written what they believe to be true. The one thing we've been told by Connelly that we haven't heard from Amar is familiarity with the Obamacare bill itself. He says he has read it, and we do not have that claim from Amar. We are forced to conclude that Connelly is offering an opinion based on direct knowledge of the bill, while Amar is talking only in theory.
I manage a small (12 employees) family-owned business. The pay's not great, but one perk we've always had is that the company picks up health insurance for the employees 100%. We have to pay to cover our families, but personally, we're totally covered. Today I had to inform employees that, thanks to Obamacare, the insurance company has jacked up rates so much that the premium for family coverage has now doubled.....doubled. I've also been told that its only a matter of time before the employees are going to have to pay for a portion of their own insurance. Thanks, Mr. President.
