This letter is in response to Chelsea Fleck’s letter in Friday’s Alligator. First, it’s necessary to correct her statement that the 10th Amendment to the Constitution is the Commerce Clause. While the 10th Amendment does reserve rights not specified in the Constitution to the states, it is not the Commerce Clause.
The actual Commerce Clause is in Article 1 of the Constitution and gives Congress the power to regulate commerce between multiple states. However, Article 1 also gives Congress the power to tax, which is what makes her assertion that the law is unconstitutional invalid. She argues that it’s unconstitutional for the federal government to require us to purchase something, but that’s not what’s happening.
No one is required to purchase health insurance. The law raises taxes slightly to help fund reform. If someone purchases insurance, he or she receives an exemption from that tax.This is no different than when President Carter gave tax credits to people who purchased solar panels in the ‘70s, and the government’s right to grant tax exemptions has been upheld by the Supreme Court. In the end, if someone chooses not to purchase insurance and gets sick or hurt, we already pay their bills through rate hikes while the sick person pays nothing.
This law assures that those people will at least pay something, which is why conservatives introduced it in the ‘90s as an answer to Clinton’s proposal. I guess it’s not conservative enough anymore.
