Executive Summary: Why the Personal Mandate to Buy Health Insurance Is Unprecedented and Unconstitutional

Executive Summary: Why the Personal Mandate to Buy Health Insurance Is Unprecedented and Unconstitutional: "As the Congressional Budget Office explained: 'A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.' Yet, all of the House and Senate health-care bills being debated require Americans to either obtain or purchase expensive health insurance, estimated to cost up to $15,000 per year for a typical family, or pay substantial tax penalties for not doing so.

The purpose of this compulsory contract, coupled with the arbitrary price ratios and controls, is to require some people to buy artificially high-priced policies as a way of subsidizing coverage for others and an industry saddled with the costs of other government regulations. Rather than appropriate funds for higher federal health-care spending, the sponsors of the current bills are attempting, through the personal mandate, to keep the forced wealth transfers entirely off budget.

This takes congressional power and control to a strikingly new level. An individual mandate to enter into a contract with or buy a particular product from a private party is literally unprecedented, not just in scope but in kind, and unconstitutional either as a matter of first principles or under any reasonable reading of judicial precedents."