Dave Kopel suggests that the mandate may violate the constitution right to privacy. I hadn’t honestly thought of that angle, but I’m sure there’s a penumbra emanating from the Constitution somewhere that would lend credence to this argument.
2 thoughts on “Health Care Mandate and Privacy”
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Don’t worry, the democrats can fix that easy, by forbidding the insurance companies to collect or keep information. They’ll just run an instant check through a federal system managed by the IRS, and no mistakes or problems will arise.
I see what he’s getting at… I just never thought the left or the courts took the right to privacy seriously in it’s own right. I mean, what specifically does the right to privacy protect except for abortion? Nothing I’m aware of. Security of your person, paper, effects and communications goes only as far as explicitly commanded by the warrant requirement for search and seizure and no farther. “Privacy” in its own right is limited by a “reasonable expectation of privacy,” which practically means you’ve got none outside your house or off your own land, and even then you’d better build a fence and draw the curtains, and police can still overfly your property checking for illegal horticulture.
And, to be clear, I can follow the logic behind our status quo order. My point is, if “privacy” stops after the warrant requirement until it kicks in again all the way out at abortion, it always was a fig leaf and a form of special pleading. It’s not something the court(s) are likely to rally behind to strike down a piece of leftist legislation.