The Power to Tax Is The Power

Author's Note: In light of Thursday’s Supreme Court decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act’s insurance mandate on the basis of Congress’s taxing power rather than the Commerce Clause, a slightly modified reprise of this November 27, 2009, column seems appropriate. Note the part about the Supreme Court’s long-standing position that Congress may regulate conduct through the tax system.
Ruth Marcus, Washington Post op-ed writer, tried to make a constitutional case  for the individual health insurance mandate that Congress will surely pass before the year is over. She offered two grounds, the Commerce Clause, which is specified in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s bill, and the taxing power.
On the first she writes:

Spending on health care consumes 16 percent–and growing–of the gross domestic product. There is hardly an individual activity with greater effect on commerce than the consumption of health care.

If you arrive uninsured at an emergency room, that has ripple effects through the national economy–driving up costs and premiums for everyone. If you go without insurance, that limits the size of the pool of insured individuals and–assuming you are young and healthy–drives up premium costs.

. . . [S]ince the New Deal, the Supreme Court has interpreted this authority to cover local activities with national implications.

Read more: http://reason.com/archives/2012/07/01/the-power-to-tax-is-the-power