Round and round and rounder still ...

Economist journalist McArdle picks up on what this blog was filtering for you folks back in May. My header and lede sentences:

Don't punish the innocent and lessen their personal health choices.

or, A Tax on the Healthy.

The New York Times argues for mandatory premiums from those Americans choosing not to consume medical services.

Make no mistake, they advocate directly reaching in and transferring dollars* from monthly household budgets of non-consumers, to hospitals and medical providers who need help keeping their own books balanced when they can't collect from their customers

The nut graf:

And we return to George Will's question for Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings: Does the federal government then also have the Constitutional right to require daily calinsthetics -- exercise and stretching routines -- of the masses? To force an activity on the populace simply for being, in a targeted effort to reduce the nation's healthcare bills that are bringing the country down?

I strongly recommend we don't use this artificial opportunity to punish the healthy who aren't consuming medical services and adding to the stack of unpaid bills. They're the most innocent in this mess. You want those people on your side, more like them.

I think McArdle was off planning a wedding back then, perhaps, and thus needs to catch up now, not that she necessarily played it safe in her opinions, seeing how things would shake out.

For the rest of us though, nothing new in the recent court ruling-- the argument simply remains: the mandate to purchase is unconstitutional for the reasons Barnett's discussed from the beginning. (You can't regular 'non'-activity, and there's no effective opt out, as with much discussed, allleged comparable, car insurance: You don't have to drive a car. You have to breathe, and this mandate applies to all the living...)

Last November's popular vote, and the growing independence of the Supreme Court, are healthy signs that the judiciary won't be cowed into "a going along = getting along" mentality.

We're finally beginning to overcome such weaknesses in thinking, it seems. And that's a bandwagon we'd welcome more and more of you aboard...