The insurance mandate clearly exceeds the federal government's powers under the interstate commerce clause found in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. This is patently obvious: the power to "regulate" commerce cannot include the power to compel commerce! Those who claim otherwise simply ignore the plain meaning of the Constitution because they don't want to limit federal power in any way.
The commerce clause was intended simply to give Congress the power to regulate foreign trade, and also to prevent states from imposing tariffs on interstate goods. In Federalist Paper No. 22, Alexander Hamilton makes it clear the simple intent behind the clause was to prevent states from placing tolls or tariffs on goods as they passed through each state – a practice that had proven particularly destructive across the many principalities of the German empire.
But the Supreme Court has utterly abused the commerce clause for decades, at least since the infamous 1942 case of Wickard v. Filburn. In that instance, the Court decided that a farmer growing wheat for purely personal use still affected interstate commerce – presumably by not participating in it!
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