Association of Physician and Surgeons (AAPS) and Pacific Legal Foundation Challenge ObamaCare Constitutionality

The Fifth Amendment is an old and dear friend. It is one of the landmarks in man’s strategies to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized.

William O. Douglas (1898-1980), Supreme Court Justice, in An Almanac of Liberty

The Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and the Pacific Legal Foundation have instituted lawsuits challenging ObamaCare  on the basis that its Individual Mandate has violated a clause in the Fifth Amendment.   The Fifth Amendment, in its Origination Clause, syates that taxes must only originate in the House of Representatives

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Jane Orient, MD, executive director or AAPS, flatly states, “If the Constitution means anything, It means that the U.S. Senate may not initiate tax increases. Yet that is precisely what ObamaCare is: a tax increase initiated by the Senate, in violation of the Origination Clause.”

The Fifth Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights.  Its intent is to protect citizens against abuse of government authority.  In this case, the “abuse” is the penalty exacted against people who do not sign up for health insurance.   The Fifth Amendment’s “takings clause” says government has no right to take property or money from individuals  without  “just compensation.”

The Pacific Foundation has asked a judge 1) to rule that when the Senate enacted ObamaCare it include a “tax” for not purchasing  health insurance, thereby violating the Origination Clause that all revenue bills must originate in the House of Representatives, and 2) citizens are under no legal obligation to purchase health insurance.

The AAPS says tax increases on other ObamaCare fronts are already well underway, to the  tune of $600 billion. As the result of these taxes and as well as sharply increased costs due to the requirement that all government-approved plans must include 10 essential benefits at great costs,  insurers are cancelling  millions of health  plans and increasing premiums and deductibles in existing and new health plans.

At the heart of opposition to ObamaCare is the conduct of President Obama, who on 21 occasions, has unilaterally changed the Affordable Care Act by executive order without  approval by the House of Representatives,  indeed without even consulting the House.  

 Critics of the President say these executive orders are unlawful and unconstitutional, and they want ObamaCare and the Individual Mandate and the law itself to be suspended or delayed until Constitutional matters can be clarified.  These lawsuits, and other lawsuits, including  suits objecting to the Contraceptive Mandate that religious organization  must pay for contraceptives against their religious principles,   may be ultimately decided by the Supreme Court.

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