A Fundamental Question

WSJ: Under Obama's plan, "Most individuals would be required to purchase health insurance."

Can someone explain to me how a requirement that each and every American buy health care coverage is constitutional ? Where in the US Constitution is the Federal government given the power to impose this on individual persons ? Where is this even implied ?

The Tenth Amendment states that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The Ninth Amendment has been interpreted to include a right to privacy, among others, which I certainly do not dispute. So isn't one's choice of funding one's health care a matter of privacy ?

I suppose those reading a "broad" interpretation might find some fig leaf under the Commerce Clause to support such a mandate. By the way, those with a "broad" interpretation really just make it up as they go along.

So what is to be done to improve the health care system - which is indisputably a mess for anyone who has any serious experience using it. First recognize what I proved yesterday, viz., that health care is NOT a fundamental right; it's a shared benefit.

The shared benefit: just provide every person a voucher - the shared benefit - expressed or implied, to buy health insurance or some kind of health care. Then make it law that if a person does not choose or exercise or spend his voucher, his voucher is randomly or somehow exercised automatically to cover him. That's it. No mandate.

The next questions are what is covered, and how to pay. You'll have to wait for those ... I've got to save something for future writings.

Actions

Doing nothing. I'm sitting on the call option positions and waiting.

VVUS is interesting as a drug speculation, IF the diet drug works and is safe. I might buy 100 shares as a marker/reminder note once the hub-bub dies off. Approval is a couple years off, so there's plenty of time to get a serious position.

Word of the Day

"Descry" - verb, transitive [$10] literary
Descry means catch site of, discern.
Sentence: Reading accounts of Obama's speech on health care last evening, I was unable to descry anything new or substantive; it was all mere rhetoric, typical of The Bloviator.

Das Worte der Woche

"Hören" - verb; past participle is gehört.
Hören means to listen, to hear.
Der Satz: Ich habe Obama heute machte nicht gehört.
Sentence: I did not listen to Obama last night.