Kathleen Parker [“Putting Obamacare in its place,” op-ed, March 28] argued that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are about as similar as a dog and a zebra. She’s right — it’s an absurd comparison. But she did not acknowledge the most important similarity between the two bills.
The main constitutional argument against the individual mandate in the ACA, as put forth by Paul Clement before the U.S. Supreme Court, is that it is an “unprecedented effort by Congress to compel individuals to enter commerce.”
But it is not unprecedented. The Civil Rights Act compelled many Southern business owners to enter commerce. It forced them, against their will, to sell products to black people.
What is the difference between compelling someone to buy something (as the ACA does) and compelling someone to sell something (as the Civil Rights Act does)? In both cases, commerce is created where it would not have existed without congressional mandate.
David Gutman, Washington
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Kathleen Parker said that the Affordable Care Act “forces business and individuals to buy something against their will.” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. likewise argued that the law forces people who are “never going to need pediatric or maternity services” to buy into the health-care market.
In response, I quote the reply by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) to the assertion by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) that he would never need maternity care: “I think your mom probably did.”
Even the young and healthy can’t have the hubris to assert that they will never require medical care. The law would simply require everyone to support a safety net that will help them if and when they one day need it.
Courtenay Lewis, Washington
Parker, her fellow Rethuglican apologists and the Rethuglican justices are wont to draw false comparisons (as above) and ludicrous reductio ad absurdum arguments (mandatory broccoli eating!) that once again only serve to illustrate their blind partisanship and the poverty of their reasoning.
BONUS: Want more of the Parker/Rethug Zeitgeist? Here's Hunter at Daily Kos, referring to Rethuglican id, uber-crackpot and purported Christian Rep. Steve King's (Loon-IA) malevolent take on freedom, liberty and health care:
Tanning and broccoli, freedomz and liberteez, every damn thing tossed up against the wall to avoid dealing with the basic notion that perhaps people are dying and they don't have to die, and perhaps we could help them if the crapsacks among us could only be convinced to give a damn, and maybe repairing the flaws in our system would be a good thing except that a bunch of people who make a lot of money and have wonderful health insurance and are not currently sick just don't see the problem the rest of us are left to deal with every day, and so just don't care. Sovereignty means go to Hell, less fortunate, does it not? I know that from the Republican presidential debates, where the audience was quite clear on what should happen to people who suddenly need medical care but who cannot, for any one of ten thousand different reasons, afford it.
(Ed. - For those who missed the debates, the Rethug crowds cheered the notion of uninsured folks being denied health care.)
