I’ve been meaning to get back to blogging and this morning is as good a time as any.

Ed has a good post this morning on the growing debate over the constitutionality of health insurance mandates and the left’s solidifying position that of course it’s allowed because Congress can do anything if they say they’re doing it for people’s own good, which is obviously what the framer’s intended by “general welfare.” (No really, that’s what they’re saying)

So I’ll ask again: What authority does Congress have to mandate that people buy a product?  What precedent do they have to threaten people with imprisonment if they don’t buy a product merely for existing, as opposed to a prerequisite for accessing public roads as with car insurance?  The reason why Pelosi, Leahy, and Hoyer refuse to answer those questions is because they don’t have an answer to them.

I’m not so much going to focus on the specific post content, because Ed’s got the whole constitutionality argument covered, but there were some interesting comments on enforcing the mandates that I wanted to touch on.

As a bit of background, in all of the proposed healthcare bills containing an individual mandate, the mandate will be enforced by the IRS.

Now, knowing that the IRS will be the enforcer of this mandate, what can one logically conclude about the following statements?

its like taxes, pay voluntarily so you don’t get fined or thrown in jail.

If this monstrosity passes, I can all but guarantee you will see MILLIONS dare the feds to imprison them.

And here’s the rub with the individual mandate: yes indeed, paying income taxes is considered to be voluntary, but for tens of millions of people in this country, it’s voluntary only to the point where it’s also voluntary to go to work and get a paycheck. Yes, self-employed people (I’m ignoring corporations in this argument, because they aren’t applicable) have to actually write a check and have a little flexibility in deciding whether or not to write that check, but for millions of Americans, they pay their taxes every two weeks whether they want to or not. It’s called “payroll withholding” and it’s insidious.

They don’t withhold taxes from your paycheck because it’s more convenient for everyone that way (although that’s how they justify it). They withhold taxes from your paycheck because it makes you more docile and ignorant and easier to be lied to. This is why the IRS is always so interested in trying to classify people as employees when they might not actually consider themselves to be, because the IRS gets more money with less hassle that way and you’re not as informed about how much you’re actually paying.

So what does this have to do with the individual mandate? Like a lot of things, the actual enforcement mechanism will be a matter of regulation rather than statute, but my guess is that signing your paperwork when you start a new job will become something like registering your car at the DMV: you’ll have to show proof of insurance when you fill out all of the forms and if you can’t, they’ll just automatically take the fine/fee/premium out of your paycheck just like normal income taxes and it will be up to you at the end of the year to prove that you were really insured so that you can get an interest-free refund of the nominal amount they withheld. No one will be wiser and there will be no way for anyone to protest or otherwise not pay.

Just watch.