Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski: Striking down individual mandate would mean ending Obamacare

Published December 6, 2010 5:00am ET



Litigation over Obamacare’s individual mandate has captured the public’s attention. But the ultimate goal in challenging the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care law is not the mandate; it’s severability. This individual mandate that you must buy health insurance is the most obnoxious provision of Obamacare, eradicating the concept of limited government. If the federal government can tell you how to spend your own money to buy insurance, then it also has the power to command you how to spend the rest of your money in every area of life, from food, to education, to housing.

But the mandate is only one intolerable aspect of Obamacare. One authoritarian provision is the employer mandate, imposing draconian penalties on every employer with over fifty employees who does not offer health insurance. Obamacare includes many such mandates, taxes and administrative burdens.

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