Mary Landrieu refuses to state where the constitution authorizes healthcare mandates

  When Senator Mary Landrieu was asked where the constitution gives congress the authority to mandate healthcare coverage this was what she had to say:

Well, we’re very lucky as members of the Senate to have constitutional lawyers on our staff, so I’ll let them answer that.

  In other words, she has no idea where the authority comes from, and there is good reason why she doesn’t know the answer to the question. Because the constitution does not give congress this authority. Of course, she should know this and perhaps she does, but is willing to go ahead anyway. Instead of admitting this, she hides behind constitutional lawyers. It seems to me that these lawyers should have been asked beforehand if the mission that the congress is embarked on is constitutional. But the fact is that the members of congress know that most likely the constitutionality of healthcare mandates will never be challenged after it is passed. In fact, that is what they are banking on.

   A recent commenter here, Steve, asked me if I thought that a constitutionality challenge would be forthcoming, and after thinking it through a little more I am doubtful. It seems to me that someone would have stepped up by now, but perhaps they are just waiting to see the final version of the bill before taking action. I just don’t know, but listening to these representatives and senators trying to come up with a justification makes me wonder how this can not be challenged in court.

  Mary Landrieu could not leave her answer at that though as she continued:

But what I will say is that most certainly it is within Congress’ jurisdiction to come up with a way to have a health insurance funded with shared responsibility, is the way I like to, you know — government has a responsibility, individuals have a responsibility and business has a responsibility

  The government has  “jurisdiction to come up with a way to have a health insurance funded with shared responsibility?” I would ask her to point out where the constitution provides for a “shared responsibility” to provide healthcare. Did she just reverse her previous position that it would be up to constitutional lawyers to decide the legallity of a healthcare mandate? It seems so to me.

  Mary Landrieu is also trying to soften the word “mandate” to a kinder, gentler term.

So, while some people, and I occasionally will use the word mandate for or against, but it’s really a shared responsibility, so that the burden of this doesn’t fall too heavily on any one group

  It is not a mandate in her world, it is shared responsibility. This tells me that she knows the mandate is unconstitutional and that she is trying to disassociate herself and congress from this term. There is an old joke in the manufacturing field that workers like to invoke against engineers, when you can’t meet the specs, change the specs. That is what she is trying to do, change the specs.

  These politicians are all grasping at straws to try to justify the unconstitutional mandates they are trying to force upon the American people. We can not stop this legislation, we just have to hope that the courts will do it for us.