Universal Health Care: Trampling the Constitution

by Austin Raynor

Last week Nancy Pelosi was asked by CNSNews.com, a conservative blog, “where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?” Ms. Pelosi inexplicably replied, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Immediately afterwards, Nadeam Elshami, Pelosi’s press spokesman, told CNSNews, “That is not a serious question.”

Sadly, it is undeniable that our representatives do not take such questions seriously. Most federal programs and laws currently in effect are unconstitutional. In Article I, Section VIII of the Constitution, the powers of Congress are specifically enumerated. Most of these powers constitute general categories of action rather than specific legislative duties, but none of them even vaguely authorize any program remotely like national health care.

The Tenth Amendment ensures that the enumerated powers are the only powers that Congress shall have, stating explicitly, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

One of the enumerated powers often cited by statists (those who believe in concentrating economic power in the state) to justify unlimited governmental expansion is what is called the commerce clause. This piece of Article VIII reads: “The Congress shall have power…to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.”

Ms. Pelosi’s office, in defense of the constitutionality of the Speaker’s health care agenda, issued a press release stating that Congress has “broad power to regulate activities that have an effect on interstate commerce. Congress has used this authority to regulate many aspects of American life, from labor relations to education to health care to agricultural production.” This contention clearly refers to the commerce clause.

However, the Speaker’s claim is made laughable when one considers the fact that health insurance may not legally be sold across state lines. The commerce clause explicitly does not apply to the sale of a product within a single state, which is universally the case with health insurance.

The other clause of Section VIII that statists inevitably make reference to is the portion that reads, “Congress shall have power to…provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.” In this case specifically the statists contend that universal health care is part of the general welfare.

But this simplistic reading of the Constitution is untenable; if this clause were intended to allow for unlimited government expansion it would be useless to have a Constitution at all. In 1791, Thomas Jefferson, wary of this interpretation, wrote, “They (Congress) are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare.”

To place all one’s emphasis on this specific clause, while ignoring the rest of the Constitution, would, Jefferson argued, “reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please ... Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them.”

Jefferson concluded, “Let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” With this command, which speaks so pertinently to our current situation, Jefferson surely foresaw the dangers awaiting. But he also diagnosed a problem which many pro-government Americans seem too naïve to consider: that bureaucrats and leaders are just as apt to engage in “mischief” as anyone else is.

Statists often harp on the greediness of the capitalist in calling for greater government intervention. In this case, government is needed to save us from the knavery of the insurance companies. But these citizens forget that those in power are humans like anyone else, and, if anything, the acknowledgement of man’s tendency towards ill-will is an argument for decentralization, and the rule of law, rather than concentration of monopolistic power.

The problem with government is that its power is sustained by brute force. A capitalist may only hold power over people by convincing them to purchase his products. But a bureaucrat holds power at the point of a gun. In the words of George Washington, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” Contempt for the constitution, which amounts to contempt for the rule of law, is a road that has often been tread and which has never led to anything short of tyranny.