Richard Epstein on ObamaCare

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2010/12/richard-epstein-on-obamacare

Libertarian law professor Richard Epstein has a new post up at Forbes about the court ruling finding ObamaCare unconstitutional:

If the system is going to give some individuals a subsidy, it must find a way to tax someone else to provide that subsidy. Hence the individual mandate.

Notwithstanding the unanimous support of the cross subsidy by the political classes, their use is not a sound idea. Cross subsidies are always unstable because they lead to overconsumption by the privileged class and massive resistance by the losers. In a real sense, a revitalized takings clause argument would condemn these as transfers of wealth from A to B, without just cause.

But here no one in the political elites of either party wants to challenge the correctness of the subsidy.

He also says that if the courts find an individual mandate to buy health insurance is constitutional, "it invites the government to force me to buy everything from exercise machines to bicycles, because there is always some good that the coercive use of state authority can advance."

by Editor  |  Dec 13, 2010 at 5:06 pm Related Topics:  Education, Health Care receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list