Using the “slippery slope” argument, a vocal minority of Republican lawmakers and constitutional scholars who lean that way are making some noise on Capitol Hill this week, and they are poised to fight the pending reform bill’s conversion into law. These critics of the reform bill are attacking the mandate that individuals (as opposed to employees and recipients of Medicare and Medicaid) must obtain some coverage as part of reform. The coverage mandate aspect of the reform bill has gotten much ink over the past six months, as national sentiment began to turn against the Obama plan. Ultimately, this wave of dissent among lawmakers infected the entire Republican party, leading to a compromise many believe Obama privately anticipated all along — practical dissolution of the public option.

For those on the Right opposing the constitutionality of the reform bill, squelching the public option is not enough. They contend

…that an individual’s inactivity — in this case, the failure to buy health insurance — does not qualify as interstate commerce, and thus Congress does not have the power to regulate it under the Commerce Clause. [Also] … the financial penalty the law would impose goes beyond Congress’s ability to lay and collect taxes.

Naysayers in response quickly point out that Congress has every right to impose a tax that promotes the general welfare of the citizen and that the Supreme Court has ruled “that Congress may regulate activities that ‘substantially affect’ interstate commerce”. That the constitutionality of this bill as being seriously challenged at this point is a telling postlude to just how polarizing this issue has become — something many political pundits and even Barack Obama never quite envisioned when it comes to something so intimate to every body as healthcare. | LINK

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