Romney's loss on mandate may be Pawlenty's gain

MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) defied recommendations made to him by advisers twice in the last 6 years about working to install individual mandates for health insurance coverage -- and in doing so may have stockpiled some points he can use to score with the GOP base.

The likely '12 WH contender has been avidly opposed to the health care legislation signed into law by Pres. Obama last week and maintains that it should be repealed. He has kept up a harsh critique of individual mandates - a piece of the issue that separates him from likely '12 WH GOP rival/ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney.

Pawlenty appointed ex-Sen. David Durenberger (R) to chair the Citizens Forum on Health Care Costs in '03 largely to advise him on cost containment. Later, Pawlenty empaneled a Health Cabinet. In the report Durenberger and his team issued to Pawlenty on Feb. 23, '04, he noted that the state's uninsured rate of 5.4% was among the nation's lowest, and that state residents understood the need for buy-in.

Supreme Court's "flawed jurisprudence" probably permits mandated purchase of health insurance

Last night's passage of the greatest expansion of the federal government since the Great Society is a sad day for our country, not only because it may bankrupt our future, but also because we have no recourse to the Constitution. Our Constitution was elegantly designed to protect individuals from too much concentration of power in any one source, but the Supreme Court has evolved into a body that has protected and even facilitated the modern regulatory state at the expense of our founding principles. The optimism of state attorneys general and others who hope to challenge the constitutionality of this legislation is admirable, but such challenges are not likely to be successful.

A challenge to the "individual mandate" is perhaps the best legal option available. The health care bill requires certain individuals to purchase health insurance on a government run exchange, a requirement many legal scholars have argued is an unconstitutional expansion of federal power. It not only imposes a duty on individuals to purchase insurance, but it heavily regulates the available options, requiring individuals to engage in economic activity to subsidize an industry on which Congress has conferred special benefits. Imagine the outrage if, in order to promote general economic stability, individuals were required to buy American cars or purchase stock in one of the government's preferred financial institutions.

Despite this patent overreach by Congress, the Supreme Court's flawed jurisprudence on this issue probably permits it.

Compulsary health insurance would drive up cost

"The most sweeping provision in the health care reform legislation before Congress is not the new government program Democrats wish to create, but the "individual mandate" that would make health insurance compulsory.

According to Cato scholar Michael F. Cannon, the individual mandate that Massachusetts enacted in 2006 shows that ObamaCare would effectively outlaw low-cost health plans, making health insurance more expensive for millions, and "would expand federal power by enabling it to ration care to patients under age 65."