Buy Health Insurance or Get Fined
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum
McCollum, a Republican who is running for governor in November, called the provision in the Democrat-driven health care overhaul a “living tax.” McCollum said provisions requiring people to buy health insurance “violate constitutional principles and lack constitutional authority for Congress to enact.” He sent the analysis to Democratic and Republican leaders.
“Never before has Congress compelled Americans, under threat of government fines or taxes, to buy health insurance or other unwanted service simply as a condition of existing in this country,” McCollum wrote.
Several prominent legal scholars dispute McCollum’s analysis and say that under the Commerce Clause in the U.S. Constitution, Congress can require people to buy health insurance. The argument that the mandate violates the Constitution has “no legal merit,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law expert and dean at the University of California-Irvine School of Law.
“It’s obvious he’s just posturing,” said state Sen. Dan Gelber, a Miami Democrat running for attorney general who has been vocal in his opposition to McCollum’s position. “He’s had some kind of announcement about this every week, and the bill hasn’t even passed yet. It’s so premature – and tragically ironic, since Florida has the worst health care crisis in the country, with 4 million uninsured, and all the attorney general wants to do is saber rattle against any kind of reform.”
Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
