A NATIONWIDE PUBLIC INTEREST RELIGIOUS CIVIL LIBERTIES LAW FIRM

[Freedom Is Not Free]

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News Release
Contact: Public Relations
Department - 800-671-1776

Date: March 22, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Obama Healthcare Insurance Mandate is Unconstitutional
Congress lacks the authority to force healthcare coverage on people
and businesses

Washington,
DC
–
The Obama healthcare insurance bill is unconstitutional because
Congress lacks the authority to mandate health insurance coverage for
individuals or private businesses. Liberty Counsel will file suit
challenging the constitutionality of the bill if it is signed by
President Barack Obama. Liberty University, the largest and
fastest-growing Christian university in the world, with over 50,000
students, is one of the plaintiffs in the suit. The suit will also
raise the concerns of individuals, private nonprofit and for-profit
businesses and organizations, and religious institutions.

Mathew Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty
University School of Law, said: “Congress does not have unlimited
authority to regulate private actions. If the Constitution does not
give Congress the power to act, then Congress cannot act. Congress
clearly lacks the constitutional authority to force individuals to
have, or private businesses to provide, health insurance. Congress’s
attempt to force health insurance coverage on the nation is a stunning
example of what Congress cannot do.”

The Taxing and Spending Clause and the Commerce Clause are the two
primary provisions of the Constitution that enable Congress to act. The
healthcare bill does not fall under the Taxing and Spending Clause.
Moreover, unlike some other laws Congress passes which impose
requirements on states that accept federal funds, the healthcare bill
imposes requirements on individuals and private employers who refuse to
accept the government mandate. The U.S. Supreme Court has cut back on
Congress’s authority to regulate private or local matters of concern.

Staver concluded, “If Congress had the power to force each person to
have health insurance, then individual liberty would be meaningless. No
matter the desires of President Obama and the Democratic leadership,
there are some things Congress cannot do. No one wants the federal
government or a pencil-pushing bureaucrat in Washington policing
private medical decisions. No one wants IRS agents to become the health
insurance police. The threat to liberty posed by the healthcare bill
goes beyond healthcare. If Congress can get away with this expansive
power grab, then individual liberty and state sovereignty will vanish.
The Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress are
incapable of fiscal responsibility. This political power grab will push
the country to financial ruin. The bill funds abortion, destroys
liberty, and is patently unconstitutional. Quoting then-Senator Obama
when campaigning for President, ‘You can put lipstick on a pig, but it
is still a pig.’”