Medical Care and the Constitution (Yes, I can bleed you. It’ll cost you a chicken.)

18th century high-tech equipment

In answer to the burning question of whether the mandate to contract for medical care is constitutional or not…. Let me answer with another question: did the original Constitution—written in the late 18^th century—anticipate massive and influential medical and pharmaceutical industries? I don’t think so. At the time medical care amounted to bleeding and poultices. 

State-of-the-art medical care

No antibiotics, no cancer medications or treatments. No x-rays, CT scans, MRI’s or blood tests. Precious little surgery. No maintenance drugs for high cholesterol and blood pressure, psychological issues and a thousand other chronic medical conditions. No hospitals or rehab facilities. The local surgeon (who doubled as a barber) was paid for his services with a chicken or two. There was no such thing as catastrophic medical care that would take you to the poorhouse. Infections killed you, childbirth gone-wrong killed you and the baby, and most people didn’t live long enough to suffer from the diseases of old age. So the founding fathers could not have foreseen the commercial juggernaut into which the medical industry would grow two centuries later. And trying to shoehorn today’s healthcare business into the simple medical paradigm of the 1780’s… well, it makes no sense. The logic seems to be that if the founding fathers didn’t address it, then we won’t either. By this exquisite logic, slavery and child labor would still be legal.

Lady Justice is blind. Not stupid.

As for the Supreme Court—secure in the safety of their own guaranteed, life-long medical coverage—and having the nerve to spout obviously partisan questions about the political policy of the healthcare mandate…. Scalia’s and Roberts’ partisanship is not even thinly veiled. I’m speechless. In this century the court has twice proven that it is not above partisan politics (Bush v. Gore and the more recent—and quite crazy—ruling that PACS and corporations are people), and it looks like they may head down the same path this time. So much for the Court’s impartiality: Judicial activism in the name of conservatism is still activism.