Sen­a­tor Orrin Hatch (R-​​UT) called the indi­vid­ual man­date “unprecedented”.

The Supreme Court is cur­rently delib­er­at­ing on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act’s “indi­vid­ual man­date”, which requires all Amer­i­cans to pur­chase med­ical insurance.

It has been pointed out by oppo­nents that the indi­vid­ual man­date is an unprece­dented require­ment to engage in com­merce. The Con­gres­sional Research Ser­vice, for exam­ple, observed that “it is a novel issue whether Con­gress may use the clause to require an indi­vid­ual to pur­chase a good or a service.”

The Cato Insti­tute came to a sim­i­lar con­clu­sion, that “[f]inding the man­date con­sti­tu­tional would be the first inter­pre­ta­tion of the Com­merce Clause to per­mit the reg­u­la­tion of inac­tiv­ity — in effect requir­ing an indi­vid­ual to engage in an eco­nomic transaction.”

Yet it seems that, from an exam­i­na­tion of his­tory, they are incor­rect. (more…)