In his September 9 address to Congress and the nation on health insurance, President Obama said that under his plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance.
There is no clause in Article I of the Constitution authorizing Congress to craft legislation forcing individuals to purchase insurance.
Mr. Obama attempted to justify his intended federal intrusion on individual liberty by noting that states require drivers to carry auto insurance. Notwithstanding the difference between a requirement imposed on licensed individuals or machines as opposed to a mandate for everyone, he fails to recognize the distinction between federal and state powers. James Madision, writing in Federalist No. 45, says:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
Mr. Obama's proposal not only deprives us of a freedom to use our money as we best deem fit, and is therefore authoritarian, but it is unconstitutional as well.
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