Once again, statist thugs grind on the Achilles’ heel of America’s founding charter - the Interstate Commerce Clause.

“Those who go without health insurance “substantially affect interstate commerce” by shifting health care costs to others, “increasing financial risks to households and medical providers,” causing bankruptcies, increasing insurance premiums and raising administrative expenses, according to the legal filing. [emphasis mine]”

In other words, “Since we’ve decided that healthcare is a right, and care providers are morally obligated to serve the needs of others, the government has the moral authority to force everyone into the system to control costs.”

Which leads to the question which can only be met with snarling condemnation – How could those who go without insurance inflict such an impact on the market if all individuals were merely responsible for only their own care?

Answer: they couldn’t! Their decisions regarding healthcare would essentially affect only themselves. If men weren’t forced to serve others financially, no other man would have to pay for the bad decisions of another.

This notion, of course, is unimaginable to a pragmatic collectivist, who only see this as a case where “just a little more” government control is needed “just to keep things in line” – which is exactly what Medicare proponents claimed 50 years ago when the obliteration of American medicine began.
Like all cases of market intervention and regulation, we see that “just a little” has now escalated to the full socialization of an industry. Such is the recursive nature of economic meddling, which as logic, history and economics indicate, can only result in higher prices, lower quality, and more regulation to come.

The statist argument is that:

1) Because we have (unjust) laws *forcing* healthcare providers to render services to everyone (regardless of their ability to pay) and 2) because we’ve established a welfare state which enslaves productive citizens across 50 states to cover the financial burdens of others, then 3) in order to maintain interstate commerce by controlling costs, government needs to A) force healthcare providers to charge all customers the same rate (as opposed to letting them recoup some of their losses from serving Medicare and Medicaid “customers” by charging self-sufficient customers a higher rate) and B) prohibit consumers from choosing any avenues of care which might enable their escape from, or expose the folly of, the whole system – in other words, one leash requires one neck.

Thus here we see the left’s favorite and most powerful legal wild-card at play - regulation under interstate commerce is virtually unstoppable.

If men are indoctrinated from birth with the morality of altruism, chained to one another in a way that each man’s burden is the responsibility of others, and can live in one of 50 different states, then yes… every breath a man makes will affect interstate commerce.

America has signed a blank check on government tyranny that is beyond containment.

• Health-care reform and the mixed economy
• What the “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” HR 3962, Actually Says
• How to stop losing the health-care debate

My current job lends itself to substantial visibility into any congressional activity pertaining to health care. I see weekly summaries listing all medically related bills. The irrational nonsense they try to pull off is remarkable.

This one is especially evil - Section 3 (a-b):
S. 623

SEC. 3. ELIMINATION OF PRE-EXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSIONS UNDER GROUP HEALTH PLANS.

(a) Application Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974-

(1) ELIMINATION OF PRE-EXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSIONS- Section 701 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (29 U.S.C. 1181) is amended–

(A) by amending the heading to read as follows: ‘elimination of pre-existing condition exclusions’;

(B) by amending subsection (a) to read as follows:

(a) In General- A group health plan, and a health insurance issuer offering group health insurance coverage, with respect to a participant or beneficiary–

‘(1) may not impose any pre-existing condition exclusion; and

‘(2) in the case of a group health plan that offers medical care through health insurance coverage offered by a health maintenance organization, may not provide for an affiliation period with respect to coverage through the organization.’;

(C) in subsection (b), by striking paragraph (3) and inserting the following:

‘(3) AFFILIATION PERIOD- The term ‘affiliation period’ means a period which, under the terms of the health insurance coverage offered by the health maintenance organization, must expire before the health insurance coverage becomes effective.’;

(D) by striking subsections (c), (d), (e), and (g); and

(E) by redesignating subsection (f) (relating to special enrollment periods) as subsection (c).

(2) CLERICAL AMENDMENT- The item in the table of contents of such Act relating to section 701 is amended to read as follows:

‘Sec. 701. Elimination of pre-existing condition exclusions.’.

How compassionate! They want to to remove pre-existing condition exclusions for group insurance policies. Essentially, insurance companies will be required to cover you regardless of your health. If an insurer is required by force to cover any patient, they are essentially required to provide coverage that might be a guaranteed loss. Of course, they can’t operate at a loss, so they have to recoup the losses from some other avenue. That avenue is the other policy holders.

Just as the result of mandatory ER coverage increases costs, our insurance premiums will skyrocket if this repulsive bill passes. Of course the rise in costs will be attributed to “greedy” insurance companies and used to justify more regulation - typical regulatory recursion, i.e., controls breed controls.

Statists never quit and they’re attacking from every possible angle - a relentless army of irrationality. The attack in the field of medicine is especially deadly. FIRM is the organization offering the only rational mindset that will save American medicine from stagnant rot.

UPDATE: Apparently Insurance companies have see this mandate as inevitable and opted to leverage the statist force as an opportunity to cash-in. Such is the tactic of our valiant mixed-economy barons.

• Insurers offer to start charging healthy people more
• Health Insurance Industry Sells Its Soul to the Devil