Is ObamaCare Unconstitutional?

Can Obama FORCE you to buy health insurance through an individual mandate? This Washington Post article says no.

It's a very interesting thought, and one that I've been pondering since Smitty brought it up in the comments on a previous post of mine on ObamaCare.

Rivkin and Casey run through several court precedents and find that none would pass muster to allow such a mandate: "The federal government does not have the power to regulate Americans simply because they are there." Many of the uninsured, as we know, are young, feel invincible, and choose not to purchase health care which is entirely their right.

As Rivkin and Casey put it, "The genius of our system is that, no matter how convinced our elected officials may be that certain measures are in the public interest, their goals can be accomplished only in accord with the powers and processes the Constitution mandates, processes that inevitably make them accountable to the American people." Our Founding Fathers were no dummies.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air takes a look at this also, pointing out that HR3200 could attempt to enforce a mandate through the tax code with penalties for those who don't comply, but ultimately, that too is unconstitutional: "... individual mandates are unconstitutional, regardless of whether they’re explicit or buried in tax policy....The only way to get mandatory universal coverage is conversion to a single-payer system, which Congress also doesn’t have the power to do without amending the Constitution. Otherwise, free will in a free system dictates that people will make choices with which many disagree, and that includes the choice not to buy health insurance."

As a Constitutional scholar, why is Obama ignoring all this? Shouldn't he know this already? Or is it just inconvenient?

There's more at Memeorandum.