Los Angeles Times Editorial : The individual mandate: It's constitutional - The adults subject to the individual mandate participate in the market, for example rushing to an emergency room for treatment - It doesn't force them into the healthcare market, they're already there

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Los Angeles Times
Editorial
The individual mandate: It's constitutional
The legal case against it almost certainly will make its way to the Supreme Court before the individual mandate is due to take effect in 2014. But considered in its proper context, it doesn't violate the Constitution.

The individual mandate: It's constitutional



Some excerpts :

There's no question that healthcare is a form of interstate commerce subject to regulation by Congress. Nor is there any question that the adults subject to the individual mandate participate in that market, whether it be buying aspirin at a drugstore, visiting a doctor for a checkup or rushing to an emergency room for treatment. (The law exempts Christian Scientists and others who abstain from medical care for religious reasons.) The individual mandate affects how people pay for the care they consume, but it doesn't force them into the healthcare market — they're already there.

In that sense, what's at stake isn't Americans' cherished "right to be let alone." It's whether they'll continue to be stuck in a system in which millions of uninsured people force those with insurance to pick up at least part of the tab for their visits to the emergency room and for the untreated diseases that they spread. Two other federal judges have held the law to be constitutional for just that reason. As District Judge George Caram Steeh in Michigan wrote in an October ruling, "Far from 'inactivity,' by choosing to forgo insurance, plaintiffs are making an economic decision to try to pay for healthcare services later, out of pocket, rather than now through the purchase of insurance, collectively shifting billions of dollars — $43 billion in 2008 — onto other market participants."

More federal judges will render opinions on separate challenges to the Affordable Care Act in the coming weeks, and the case almost certainly will make its way up the judicial ladder to the Supreme Court before the individual mandate is due to take effect in 2014. As shown by the first few rulings, how the courts define the relevant market makes all the difference in this case. With more than 2,000 pages of regulation affecting virtually every aspect of medical care in this country, the Affordable Care Act is far more than just a new insurance regulation. If the courts consider the mandate in its proper context, they'll see that it doesn't violate the Constitution.

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