Health Care Mandate Is Unconstitutional — and Don’t Leave Home Without the Cato Constitution

Yesterday the Heritage Foundation released a new paper on the unconstitutionality of the proposed health care mandate. Think tanks aren’t normally in the habit of promoting their peer institutions’ work, but this paper is incredibly timely and its lead author is Cato senior fellow Randy Barnett. You really should go read it.

Interestingly, at the event unveiling the paper, Eugene Volokh (of UCLA Law School and the Volokh Conspiracy blog) at one point wanted to quote the Constitution and realized he wasn’t carrying one! Eugene asked if anyone had a Heritage Constitution. Former Attorney General Ed Meese, now chairman of Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, saved the day by passing Eugene his… handy, dandy, Washington Post-bestselling Cato Constitution. It seems that General Meese likes our version because it’s smaller and so fits easier into your pocket. (I would add that it also features the Declaration of Independence — as does Heritage’s — as well as a preface by my boss, Roger Pilon.)

You can watch the entire health care event, which features Senator Orrin Hatch along with Randy and Eugene, here (the Constitution bit starts at about 40:15; I ask a question at 1:04:46). The bottom line — beyond the health care abomination — is that you should always carry your Cato pocket Constitution wherever you go. Like Josh Blackman, I keep one in every suit jacket (as well as backpacks, totebags, briefcases, and roll-aboards). You never know when you — or someone else — may need it.

They also make great stocking stuffers and gifts for any night of Hanukkah (as does the latest Cato Supreme Court Review, though you may need a slightly larger stocking).

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Health Care Bill Improves Lawyers' Financial Health

The great thing for legislators about a nearly 2000 page bill — such as, oh, the House’s latest health care salvo — is that very few people bother to read the whole thing. So it’s easy to bury little gifts to favored supporters. Or big ones.

For example, check out section 2531 — that’s pages 1431-33 for those following along at home — which has gone largely unnoticed in the major news cycle. These three pages of the bill reward states that refrain from setting (or repeal) any caps on medical malpractice rewards — and the accompanying lawyers’ fees! – by requiring the Secretary of Health and Human Services to provide them an “incentive payment.”

As Hans von Spakovsky notes at NRO’s Corner, this “alternative medical liability law” aims to eviscerate cost-saving measures that protect doctors from frivolous lawsuits that increase the cost of health care to the consumer. So this has nothing to do with providing better or cheaper care, covering the uninsured, or even eliminating waste and fraud. Instead, it’s a pure sop to one of the Congressional Democrats’ key constituencies: trial lawyers.

For more information on free market health care reform alternatives, please visit Cato’s Health Care website here.

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