The six charges it brings up against Obamacare's unconstitutionality are :1) Taxation without representation
2) It illegally bypassed Congress and bribes states?
3) The State’s rights are being violated
4) The bill did not originate in the House of Representatives
5) Does not comply with the Commerce Clause
6) The Penalty for not purchasing health insurance is illegal
Taxation without representation
One part of the Constitution that may be violated is Article 1 Section 9, which stipulates: “No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.”
The Supreme Court ruled the health-care mandate under the legislation is a tax. However, according to experts cited in “Impeachable Offenses,” this tax does not satisfy any of the three types of valid constitutional taxes – income, excise or direct.
Write Klein and Elliott: “Because the penalty is not assessed on income, it is not a valid income tax. Because the penalty is not assessed uniformly or proportionately, and is triggered by economic inactivity, it is not a valid excise tax. Finally, because ObamaCare fails to apportion the tax among the states by population, it is not a valid direct tax.”
Illegally bypassing Congress? Bribing states?
Free-market advocate Phil Kerpen, cited in “Impeachable Offenses,” called the regulations an “outrageous edict that attempts to up-end the ability of states to opt out of [Obama’s] health care law’s new entitlement.”
Kerpen called the Obama administration out for what he said was an obvious attempt to “bribe states to participate by manipulating language in the law that is meant to authorize start-up grants to instead fund years of operating expenses.”
Indeed, a July 2012 announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services offered states six full years of funding.
Was the maneuver constitutional? Article I, Section 1 states: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”
Congress does not vest the power to write and rewrite laws in HHS and IRS; nor can unelected bureaucrats impose taxes on states that legitimately opted out of a federal program, Kerpen continued.
‘State’s rights violated’
The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
The Tenth Amendment Center, which was among the plaintiffs that took Obamacare to the Supreme Court, clarifies that the amendment was “written to emphasize the limited nature of the powers delegated to the federal government.”
“In delegating just specific powers to the federal government, the states and the people, with some small exceptions, were free to continue exercising their sovereign powers.”
Originated in Senate?
“Impeachable Offenses” cites Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution, which states: “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.”
The Sacramento, Calif.-based Pacific Legal Foundation filed a challenge to Obamacare that contends it is unconstitutional, because the bill originated in the Senate, not the House.
The foundation claims that under the Origination Clause of the Constitution “all bills raising revenue must begin in the House.”
The tip to follow this course of action came from the Supreme Court itself. In his June 28, 2012, ruling, it was noted that Chief Justice Roberts took pains in the majority opinion to define Obamacare as a federal tax, not a mandate.
Creating commerce
The Commerce Clause, as stated in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, grants Congress the rights to regulate interstate commerce, not intrastate commerce, Klein and Elliott note.
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“But every previous case expanding the commerce power involved some sort of ‘economic activity,’ such as operating a business or consuming a product. Failure to purchase health insurance is neither commerce nor an interstate activity. Indeed, it is the absence of commerce,” Somin added.
Illegal penalty?
Obamacare affixes a financial penalty on Americans who fail to purchase health insurance in order to regulate behavior – regulatory powers not granted in the Constitution, documents “Impeachable Offenses.”
Scott P. Richert commented after the Supreme Court ruling: “Congress has been given the green light to do something that even the most imaginative interpretation of the Commerce Clause would not allow: to compel the supposedly free citizens of the United States to purchase anything that Congress deems in those citizens’ best interest – or to compel them to purchase one thing rather than another.”
Richert, who is executive editor of Chronicles, the monthly magazine published by the conservative think tank the Rockford Institute, continued: “All Congress has to do is to pass legislation levying a tax on those who, say, fail to purchase smoke detectors for their homes, or who insist on purchasing a car that runs on gasoline over one that runs on electricity.”
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