Are you unhappy with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as ACA or simplay as ObamaCare? Is it becuase you are worried that the cost of your health care could go up? Or are you afraid that it might add more to an already enormous national debt? Or pehaps is it because you feel that it is simply unconsitutional?
If it was the latter you were probably fairly upset with the fact that the Supreme Court upheld ObamaCare on June 28 2012 when they ruled that while States could not be forced to participate in the expansion of Medicaid and that the Commerce Clause did not protect the law, ObamaCare was consitutional as the controversial invidual mandate was actually a tax. The Obama Administration and Barrack Obama himself had repeatedly claimed that the individual mandate was “a fine” and not a tax. However, the Supreme Court upheld it as a tax since it was enforced by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) just as income tax is in the United States. The Constitution does give Congress the power to tax and the 16th Amendment specifically gives them the power to levy income taxes.
Chief Justice Robert’s exact quote when reading the ruling was:
The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.
That actually does make sense even though the Obama Administration and the President himself have both lied, even after the ruling, calling it still a “fine” rather than a tax, despite that fact that he should know a thing or two about constitutional law. So that is it now right, and we are all doomed to more government intervention when more of ObamaCare’s provisions go into effect in 2014 right? WRONG! And this is why…….
The owners of this site were a little bit confused after the ruling about one thing, how did this pass Article 1, Section 7 of the constitution? While it does make sense that Congress does NOT have unlimited power under the Commerce Clause (which would have been a disaster by the way), and that it does pass the ABILITY of Congress to tax, how can it pass the PROCESS by which tax bills are created?
Article 1 Section 7 of the United States Constitution begins:
All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives;
but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
Pretty straight forward right? There is a nice high-res image over on our United States Constitution Page, so double check us just in case we misinterpreted the scribe.
So where did ObamaCare originate? If you haven’t guessed it by now, here it is: THE SENATE! The Democrats were so sure that it was not “a tax” but rather “a fine” since they had campaigned their asses off in 2008 on that premise that they did not even bother to read the constitution and start the bill in the correct house of government! Our Founding Fathers wanted bills to originate in the House of Representatives because there were more of them and they were a better representation of the people. This way, in order for a Representative to create a new tax or modify an existing one he or she would be more likely to have the backing of the district’s constituents.
If you are against ObamaCare and want to preserve the most sublime Constitution ever created by mankind, want limited government, sound money, a sound foreign policy, and freedom and liberty, you are probably happy with what you just read. However, if you are supporter of ObamaCare, government intervention, and pretty much against everything else that was just stated, you probably think it is a bunch of rubbish. WRONG AGAIN!
Iraq war veteran and current Iowa small business owner Matt Sissel has challenged ObamaCare on these grounds and the issue is now in Washington D.C. in front of United States District Judge Beryl Howell.
We will be tracking updates on this topic on the way to it being ruled Unconstitutional on our Blog page. Check back for updates, and remember, NO BILL TAX BILL IN OUR HISTORY has ever been ruled constitutional that was originated in the Senate.