In an interview with me just now, a conservative law professor made an interesting case for the individual mandate: In multiple cases, he said, the federal government has already regulated "inactivity," and it has passed muster with the Cons ution.
The cases this professor cited: Jury duty, and the draft.
New York University law professor Rick Hills describes himself as a "registered Republican and outspoken conservative," but he maintains that the primary argument conservatives use against the mandate -- that it's uncons utional to regulate economic inactivity by forcing people to buy insurance, as Judge Vinson ruled -- is bunk.
Hills frames the question this way:
If the federal government can't tell people they don't have the right to refuse to buy insurance, then why was it okay for the federal government to regulate people's "pacifism," i.e., their refusal to fight in wars? Why is it okay for the government to regulate people's refusal to serve on juries?
"If you can regulate inaction to raise juries, and you can regulate inaction to raise an army, then why isn't there equally an implied power to conscript people to buy insurance, to serve the goal of regulating the interstate insurance market?" Hill asks.
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