Republicans in Congress may have waffled on repealing Obama-care, but the question of its constitutionality still hangs and in Virginia, step two of a three-step process in overturning the law took place Tuesday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
No matter which side wins this appeal – the government or the commonwealth – the case is on a steady path to the Supreme Court of the United States, said Ken Cuccinelli, attorney general for Virginia, in a press conference at his office building following the appeal.
“I’ve said all along this case is not about health care. It’s about liberty,” he said, adding that if the government is allowed to require individuals to buy health insurance, “we will have given [them] the authority to force us to buy cars, gym memberships or the vegetable of the day.”
The government, on the other hand, sees its mandate to individuals as something of a saving grace – that it’s okay to require Americans to purchase health insurance because tax dollars will have to pay for the accidents of the uninsured, and that’s not a fair financial burden for the government to bear. So the government, in requiring all Americans to buy health insurance, is really saving Americans money. So goes the argument, anyway.
But doesn’t government derive its money from Americans in the first place? So shouldn’t those with the money be the ones who decide how and where to spend? The solicitor general for the United States shows how dismissive the government is of that concept – that of, by and for the people concept of governance – when he tells the panel of judges that the mandate is justified because “it simply transfers responsibility for financing an individual’s health care onto them [the individuals] and off the government,” according to a Washington Times report.
The people are the government, of course. And as of May 9, according to Rasmussen Reports, 57 percent favor repealing Obama-care.
Cuccinelli guessed the Fourth Circuit judges might release their decision this summer and the case could quite possibly reach Supreme Court justice conclusion by fall of 2012 – just in time for the election season. Let’s hope voters keep the public relations battle alive and don’t forget the gall of a government that insists it knows best when it comes to private medical decisions. ‘Shut up and pay’ is not a core constitutional government authority.
Cheryl Chumley is online editor for Tea Party Review Magazine.
