I have been reading a lot of well-meaning liberals who are befuddled by the notion that conservatives are going after the mandate, when that runs the risk of bringing on single payer. Personally, I kind of doubt that, but this is completely beside the point. On a reading of the commerce clause that allows the government to force you to buy insurance from a private company, what can’t the government force you to do?
This doesn’t seem to be a question that interests progressives; they just aren’t very excited about economic liberty beyond maybe the freedom to operate a food truck. And so they seem genuinely bewildered by a reading of the commerce clause that narrows its scope, or an attempt to overturn the mandate even though this might lead us into a single payer system.
When unconstitutional is a synonym for things I don’t like, it seems preposterous that something you do like could ever be unconstitutional . . . .