Should We Ignore the Constitution for a Public Good?

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court began to hear arguments in the case against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). The question they took up was whether the penalty used to enforce the individual mandate is a tax or not.  If it is a tax some legal experts say the case cannot go forward until the tax itself has been imposed.  If it is a tax then President Obama has a political problem because he promised that the vast majority of Americans were not going to see any taxes go up from his administration.  If it is not a tax then where is the authority for Congress and the Federal government to enforce the mandate?

According to Websters a tax is a charge usually of money imposed by (an) authority upon persons for public purposes.  Obamacare imposes a fee, to be collected by the IRS through its usual channel on citizens that fail to purchase health insurance.  The purpose of the fee is to force everyone to participate and thereby lower costs to all and guarantee everyone is covered.  The Obama Administration claims this is in the public interest.  It would seem what we have here is a charge by an authority (Federal Government) upon citizens that fail to purchase health insurance for public purposes.  In other words, a tax.

Yes, it does seem like a tax to me.  Frankly though, I do not care.  It really should not matter if it is a tax or not.  I look at my copy of the U.S. Constitution.  I see that Congress has the authority to tax.  However, no matter how hard I look I can find no authority for Congress to compel citizens to purchase any good or service.  (This is the issue being argued today at the Court.) 

The Obama Administration points to the Congressional power (Section 8. Article 8) to regulate commerce.  The Constitution tells us this authority is for commerce with other nations and between the states and with Indian tribes.  This authority has been much abused by Congress to involve itself in every detail of business in the land.  Even with the very loose interpretation of this article you cannot come up with the authority to compel citizens to buy healthcare insurance.

Supporters of Obamacare declare that the individual healthcare mandate is necessary to make the whole act affordable and for healthcare insurance to be  available to all.  Well, since it is necessary for Obamacare to be functional then I guess we should ignore Constitutional limits, right?  Wrong.  This is merely an exercise in justifying the means because the end is seen as a public good.  I learned in elementary school that the ends do not justify the means.