item 1: remove the mandate

Congressional Republicans are being asked to join the healthcare reform debate with the Democrats' bill, already completed, as a baseline.

They need to close ranks around the mandate, and demand that it be removed from the bill.  This needs to be the Republicans' highest priority, and they should refuse to move on to anything else until it's been done.

And the argument Republicans should use, to make their case, is that the American people are free, and that the federal government does not have the authority to impose the mandate under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.  And they can do this while cheerfully acknowledging the Democrats' good (but woefully misguided) intentions.

Comments

[Matthew Underwood]

Sadly, this will be showing my poor state of education as a college student, but how can the senate and house pass a bill so blatantly in violation of the Bill of Rights? I would think there should be a barrier to such a bill other than it being passed and then deemed unconstitutional by the SCOTUS. As far as I know, if the house, senate, and President all have the gut feeling that newspapers should be completely censored and pass a bill to do so, there's nothing to stop their majority decision throughout the legislation process?

[Ragnar Danneskjöld]

This is why we have the theoretical system of checks and balances. The President should recognize the bill as unconstitutional and veto it. If he recognizes the bill as unconstitutional(or doesn't) and still signs it into law (thank you Bush (43) for McCain-Feingold) then the courts can still rule it unconstitutional. I say theoretical because sometimes this stuff gets past the SCotUS and we are all screwed (see Kelo v. City of New London).

[ConservativeLibertine]

I think item #1 should be 'loose the idea of covering pre-existing conditions'. If that gets through then only the sick will be insured. Guess what those premiums will look like. I'll take the tax on the piddly mandate and save a ton in premiums while I am healthy, and only sign up when I get sick, right?