For the second year in a row, the Individual Mandate has taken the tarnished crown as the "winner" of our REAL March Madness ObamaCare bracket game.
You can click here to view the entire results of the 2nd REAL March Madness tournament.
It's not hard to understand why the Individual Mandate has claimed the title two years running.
It's unprecedented because never before in the name of enforcing a law has Congress claimed the power to forcibly compel private citizens into private contracts with private businesses.
It is unlimited because even the lawyers for President Obama's Department of Justice — and even the lawyers who defended ObamaCare last week before the Supreme Court — have struggled and failed to offer a single limiting principle on the power represented by the creation of the individual mandate. The lack of any limiting principle to this power means, in effect, the end of our nation's tradition of limited and enumerated government powers.
It is unnecessary because all along Congress has had the power to create a new health care regime — but it knew that the American people wouldn't stand for an explicit government take-over of health care, so they opted instead to disguise this goal by creating a mandate for "private" insurance. Ironically, the individual mandate is also vastly unpopular, with a stunning 72% of Americans believing that it expressly violates the Constitution.
And finally, the individual mandate is dangerous because standing behind it to enforce it on an unwilling American populace is the full power of the government. That's the power not only to impose fines and penalties, but to even imprison citizens for the "crime" of not purchasing health insurance.
Our REAL March Madness bracket game was just that — a game. But the individual mandate and ObamaCare are deeply serious matters.
Tell them that you're counting on them to do the right thing and repeal this unconstitutional government take-over our our private health care decisions.