Next week, the Supreme Court will devote six hours over three days to hearing challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a k a ObamaCare.
The last time the court spent this much time hearing arguments in a case was in 1966, when it devoted six hours to the case establishing a defendant’s Miranda rights and seven hours to the case that upheld the Voting Rights Act. This decision is likely to be just as momentous.
That’s because this case isn’t really about health-care reform. Rather, it’s about government power and the fundamental relationship between government and the people.
The court will hear four separate but related arguments, but all the issues boil down to a simple but important question: Do we have a government of limited, enumerated powers or a government of unbridled power, with the authority to control and direct every aspect of our lives?
In defending the health-care law, the Obama administration relies on two constitutional provisions to justify its claim of federal power. The first is the Commerce Clause, which grants Congress the power to “to regulate commerce… among the several states.” This is supposed to justify ObamaCare’s mandating that each of us buy insurance (the “individual mandate”).
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