Jonathan Emord interview about Obamacare, the Supreme Court and the individual mandate
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Welcome everyone.
This is Mike Adams with the Health Ranger Report on naturalnews.com.
Joined today by none other than health freedom attorney Jonathan Emord from emord.com.
He is also the author of a new book that I highly recommend called Restore the Republic, and he's here today to comment on the latest developments of Obama's individual mandate, his health care A mandate that's being argued in the U.S. Supreme Court this week.
So welcome to the show, Jonathan Emore.
Great to have you on.
Great to be with you.
Well, tell us, what is your perspective?
You've been monitoring the situation very closely, I take it, right?
I have been.
I've been listening to all the oral arguments, and as you know, we have a case that is identical to the Attorney's General case, but with the addition of civil rights arguments as well in the Sixth Circuit.
So it's keenly of interest to us and our clients how the court proceeds with the case.
It looks...
I'm cautiously optimistic.
It looks like, from our vantage point, Alito, Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas are probably solidly in favor of striking the mandate.
And Roberts is the question.
I think Roberts will likely go...
With those four justices.
But if he doesn't, if he goes with the minority, the liberal justices, Sotomayor, Kagan, Ginsburg, and Breyer, it would uphold the mandate.
But I think when push comes to shove, I would suspect that we might see Robert stay with the conservative group.
Well, let me ask you, there's been a lot of surprise out there, even across the mainstream media.
They thought this was going to be a slam dunk situation, that the Supreme Court would uphold the, quote, constitutionality of this individual mandate.
But the opposite seems to have happened.
The justices are expressing extreme skepticism, including one, I believe it was Scalia, who said, we're not stupid.
In countering the arguments of counsel that's advocating the individual mandate.
Can you comment on that?
Well, I think it's only been in the national media that we've seen this assumption that there would be a free ride given to the government in this oral argument.
I mean, all the lawyers who've been arguing the cases in the circuit courts, I'm one of them.
And we've seen that these have been close cases all the way through the system, and we had that same anticipation for the Supreme Court.
What we didn't know until we heard the oral argument was basically how the divide would come down in the questioning.
It's never wise to predict the outcome.
of these things because there's so many complicating factors that it's hard to predict exactly what is in the mind of any particular justice or after they consider everything whether they will weigh one factor more than another and change their position and so there's a long way to go even though the decision is coming down the end of June There's a long way to go in discussion and exchange of information among the justices before
you could know the outcome.
But what is definitely clear is that for Alito Kennedy Scalia, They're questioning.
Of course, Thomas doesn't ask questions.
But their questioning reveals serious reservations about the individual mandate, more or less condensing into what we might call a fear that if Congress is given this power...
Which is, admittedly, outside of the express language of Article I, the enumerated powers, will it rearrange the relationship between the government and the individual?
Will it create a precedent for requiring individuals to use their after-tax dollars to finance by obligation?
Well, how could it not change that relationship, Jonathan?
Because this is clearly a huge expansion of government's self-announced authority to require private citizens to engage in mandatory discretionary purchases, right?
They're mandating that, just like you said, that you spend your after-tax dollars on these specific products and services.
So, didn't one of the justices even ask that question, where does this end?
Yes, and for Scalia, for example, it was a critical point that, you know, you could have a requirement, some of the justices mentioned this in the argument, you could have a requirement that individuals be required to purchase cell phones because that would enable them to dial 911 in the event of an emergency and that would diminish the burden on the state for individuals.
Caring for people in greater instances of extremists than if they immediately dial 911.
The list is virtually endless.
I mean, even Scalia mentioned broccoli.
Why can't the government compel you to buy broccoli?
Broccoli is good for you.
It might reduce the risk of disease overall.
It is an enormous intrusion.
People have not reflected upon this point enough.
They will, as of January 1, 2014, we all will be obliged to have health insurance, and if we don't have a government coverage through Medicare, for example, you have to dole out between $5,000 and $15,000 a year to buy insurance that is mandated by the government.
Now, that's $5,000 to $15,000 of your after-tax dollars that you would otherwise freely expend And here you're being required by a law from Congress to expend it for a specific purchase, health insurance.
So if you're a young guy who's in good health, you might want to expend that money on building your business or something.
well, you can't do it. - There's another argument in all of this that no one has really raised, and that is that there's this assumption that health insurance is always good, and that it always improves the health of the people, but this is really a policy that only supports the pharmaceutical industry, the drugs and surgery industry, the cancer but this is really a policy that only supports the pharmaceutical industry, the drugs and The chemotherapy, the vaccines.
There's nothing in this health insurance that supports alternative, natural, holistic healing disease prevention that really works.
None of that is part of it.
So it's not like, you know, Kagan might say, well, this is good for everybody, so we all have to have it.
But even that's not true.
It's not good for everybody.
There's a reason why I don't even carry that kind of health insurance.
I spend my money on superfoods like this.
This is my health insurance so that I don't get cancer.
Well, this is an excellent point.
In fact, it is a point that we've raised in the Sixth Circuit.
It's part of our argument in the Sixth Circuit.
And there's another aspect to it which was also not raised, that we've raised, that I think is also indispensable to the realization of just how intrusive this is.
And that is that...
The plan that you'll be able to buy is known as a qualified plan.
And what determines the qualification of the plan?
The HHS secretary.
She determines the mix of things that are going to be covered that will constitute a qualified plan.
Now, in addition to that, the Medicare model is the model that is intended to be used here.
And what you have already with Medicare is you have insurance company agents second-guessing The independent professional judgment of physicians in the treatment of their patients so that even if you're in the conventional paradigm,
you end up with an insurance agent telling your doctor, no, that patient who's undergoing rehabilitation after cardiac surgery should not have rehabilitative services more than six weeks.
You say they need 12 weeks.
That's outside of the typical Scope of coverage, therefore it's only six weeks.
And the same is true with whether you'll have an operation, what kind of operation, what equipment will be used, what types of coverage will be provided for outpatient care.
You end up with a system that is driven by a government bureaucrat, the HHS secretary, who tells your doctor through the HHS to the independent insurers, What the doctor will do in the provision of care for you.
And that's why it's so much of a gross deprivation of individual liberty.
Well, look at the way government runs the school lunch programs where they force children to eat pink slime shaped into chicken nuggets, for example.
They've got food police now checking the brown bag lunches because the government knows better than the parents now.
There was a case that just happened where parents lost their child to CPS workers because, well, the state took the child because they refused to vaccinate that child.
That's just coming out now.
The government in so many cases, we've got the raw milk arrests, the Amish farmers being arrested and prosecuted, the multiple felony counts against James Stewart in California, the Michigan government going after pig farmers and wanting to destroy their entire herds.
It's government out of control at every opportunity.
We've got to find a way to keep government in check.
You got any ideas, Jonathan?
Well, I do, and I explain those ideas in my book, Restore the Republic.
There are many things that we can do and we must do if we are to preserve liberty in this country.
You brought out some excellent examples I might add to that mix.
The Department of Agriculture adopted a final rule roughly a month ago in which they went beyond simply defining what was in a school lunch to compelling Agents of the states on behalf of the Department of Agriculture to do inspections in grade schools in the cafeteria to determine whether the lunches that are actually being consumed by students meet the five food group
requirements.
And what they did in North Carolina, this poor girl who was a four-year-old girl in preschool brought from home a sack lunch and it included everything in every food group But the dopey DHHS inspector from North Carolina went in there and said, oh, no, your lunch, little girl, doesn't meet the federal requirements.
You'll have to eat the school lunch.
The school lunch had in it these chicken McNugget things, and the girl didn't eat anything on the plate except a few of those McNuggets.
Her mother was furious.
Then they sent her mother a bill for $1.25 to pay for the school lunch.
It's this kind of thing.
Can you imagine how intrusive that is?
Are you sure that wasn't North Korea, not North Carolina?
It sure does sound like North Korea, doesn't it?
Yeah, and by the way, we've got to use the generic term, chicken nuggets.
If you put a Mc in front of the nugget, then it becomes McDonald's brand name, and that's definitely not served in school lunches, so I just wanted to mention that correction.
It's a generic chicken nugget.
It's like Kleenex.
Right, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, let's go to the trademark office and argue that one.
But I wrote a story that mentioned the government could ask us all or demand us all then, if Obamacare is ruled constitutional, they could then demand that we all purchase terrorism insurance.
Now, currently there is no terrorism insurance, but why not have Obama's buddy, the people that just lost hundreds of millions of dollars with Solyndra, that solar company that made nothing and then went bankrupt.
They could start a terrorism insurance company and then the government could say everybody has to buy terrorism insurance and of course there's no real terrorism so they don't have to pay it out.
It could be just another scam.
Where does it end?
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Well, that's right.
It doesn't end.
And, you know, the argument that one of the justices brought up that's equivalent to that was death insurance, essentially, that you have to pay in advance to ensure that when you're dead, you can be buried or cremated, that the costs of those things would be covered so that it wouldn't be a burden on the state, potentially, because of people who might die without resources.
To do those things.
And the list is endless.
And the arguments against it, Justice Sotomayor is the one who made most of the arguments against it, most of the questions that went against it.
And the basic thrust of her position was, look, unlike any other circumstance, essentially, in life, People will become sick.
It's not a question of whether they will become sick.
And when they go to the hospital and they do not have insurance and they do not have the financial wherewithal to pay for the care that they're given, they will necessarily cause a cost shifting to take place in which everyone who is insured will end up paying more for their insurance in order to finance this cost.
It's a red herring because the same argument can be made for any other resource in the world.
I mean to the extent that you don't buy something, it generally raises the cost of that good or service in the marketplace.
And so it is not a distinguishing principle, and that's what the court honed in on, that this is not really a distinguishing principle that can be embodied in the law because it's so fungible, it's so characteristic of everything.
Well said, and last issue, then we're going to wrap up this segment with you, Jonathan, but it seems to me that this is all argument about the wrong thing.
No one's talking about how do we prevent chronic degenerative disease.
Instead, they're all arguing about who pays for it.
How do we manage the payment of ongoing disease that could be prevented?
So, shouldn't we have a healthcare system that Well, let me back up and say, if you look at the power players in American society and who influences Congress, it is the drug companies who profit from sickness and disease.
It is the vaccine manufacturers.
It is the processed food companies, the fast food companies who contribute to disease.
We have so many stakeholders who profit from ongoing disease that there seems to be no room for anyone to have influence over the idea of how do we make healthy people.
Healthy people don't generate profits for all these companies.
Thank you.
Well, that's right.
And the whole paradigm is actually one of taking public resources, taxes, and using our revenues that are generated for the operation of the government, and then shoveling those revenues over to the pharmaceutical industry through Medicare Part D, for example.
And the only way to create an environment where bad behavior, eating foods that cause you to become ill, smoking, taking drugs, where all of these behaviors The result in a person electing not to do it in greater numbers is when you make the economic incentives present equal to the risk.
So if you're going to smoke, in a system where you have to pay for your own medical care, and I'm not talking about those who are completely indigent and can't pay, whoever can pay some amount for their medical care should be paying for their medical care And to the extent that you wish to pay for insurance to cover it or whatever, that's your business.
But the point is, if you pay for the cost of your care, you are less apt to do things destructive of your health because you recognize, gee, if I smoke for 20 years, I might be in a hospital for seven months to a year and die of lung cancer, and I'm going to have to pay for all of that.
But that's assuming people are rational, that they make decisions based on evidence and based on projections into the future of future ramifications stemming from present day actions.
Now you and I are rational, and many people out there are, but it seems like the masses no longer have that rationality.
Am I going too far with that, or is there some element of truth in that?
I think that a large number of people lack this sense of personal responsibility precisely because of these welfare programs in which your own personal responsibility – you don't have to save – So
have another donut.
Right.
I mean, it may not be a complete link, but what we found over and over again is that the greatest force motivating people in our society, other than their primal needs, is wealth generation.
And if you make something extremely expensive in the market, fewer people will buy it.
It would be irrational for more people to buy it.
And some people who don't have the money will try to buy these things.
But it has its own ability to ration and limit.
The availability of things and also make people more personally responsible.
The free market activity is the greatest means by which we elevate mankind in the history of the world, of course, and it's certainly true in the medical marketplace as well.
We have a socialized medical marketplace in the country right now if we move in the direction of market.
Monopoly medical system just with pharmaceutical.
The FDA enforces the monopoly of the drug companies, as you well know.
You probably argued that very point in court.
Okay, last prediction from you.
I know you don't want to predict the outcome of the case, but at least tell us, where do things go now?
What is the progression of activity at the Supreme Court, and when will we have an answer?
June, you said?
Yes, late June, probably maybe even the very last day, business day of June.
I think if I had to hazard a guess, let's take the various issues that are present.
You have the Anti-Injunction Act, Tax Anti-Injunction Act, and that's a question of whether the Tax Anti-Injunction Act will prevent This matter from being heard at all because they would characterize this as a tax as opposed to a penalty if you don't comply with the mandate.
I think that's out.
I think that a majority of the justices will find that the Tax Anti-Injunction Act does not apply.
And therefore, they'll get to the heart of the matter, which is whether or not the individual mandate applies.
On that one, I think it's very close.
I think it could go against the mandate or could go in favor of it, depending on, I think...
Justice Roberts.
From what I gather from the oral arguments, my sense is that Justice Roberts is still mulling this over, and I think his likely landing point is against.
And then you have the last point.
Is it just going to strike the mandate?
Or is it going to cause the entire act to go under?
And I think what's likely to happen there is that most of Obamacare will be eliminated.
Not necessarily all of it.
There are many things that have been globbed onto this bill, the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act as amended.
That are for things other than things that are tied directly to the individual mandate.
Many things are tied to the individual mandate.
The heart of this whole legislation is the individual mandate, and the exchanges and various other aspects of the law are tied to it.
The whole notion of the guaranteed issue and community rating aspect of the law, which is a centerpiece of it, is directly tied to the individual mandate.
Section 1 of the bill, possibly most of Section 2, and there may be other parts that remain.
And then as far as the expansion of Medicare burdens to the state, that one I think may well be decided in favor of the federal government, unfortunately.
So, but on this principle question of will the individual mandate survive, I think it's possible it will, but I think it's becoming increasingly less likely after the oral argument.
Well, you know, I got to add too, and by the way, thanks for joining me in this segment.
We'll get this posted right away.
But isn't there an inherent conflict of interest in the fact that here we have these chief justices who are all government employees ruling on the power of the government?
What about natural law, common law, God-given rights to choose your own destiny?
No one represents that in the Supreme Court, so isn't the whole game already twisted and distorted against the people anyway, from the outset?
Well, as I explained in Restore the Republic, we have a system of checks and balances that is broken.
And as a consequence, we have legislative, executive, and judicial power being wielded by these government entities all at once.
Now, the Supreme Court has largely been insulated from this system, and as you listen to the oral argument, I think you can see just how incredibly intelligent on both sides the justices are and how very detailed and developed their inquiries have been.
We're revealing a rather cerebral and intelligent probative inquiry.
But your point about natural rights, individual rights, the effects of these things, the extent to which this change alters the Founding Fathers' original construct and causes the state to become all-powerful with no limits to the amount it can regulate individuals' lives...
That is the centerpiece of your argument, my argument as well, and yet, as you see, it isn't the centerpiece of concern at the Supreme Court.
That's a tragedy that is the result of over 75 years of erosion of the power-limiting doctrines that were a part of the Constitution, the non-delegation doctrine, separation of powers doctrine, The enumerated powers doctrine, the unconstitutional conditions provisions, all of these things, and ultimately reflected in the Commerce Clause.
I mean, the notion that the only limit on federal government regulation through the Commerce Clause is going to be some sort of assessment as to whether or not the federal government compels an individual to to uh...
uses after-tax dollars to make a specific purchase is really such a far cry from the framers understanding their understanding was that the commerce clause was there for the purpose of preventing individual states from erecting barriers to uh...
free market operations through for interstate commerce and so when you when you when you it when you instead of looking at it as an anti-state provision Blocking states from imposing barriers by allowing Congress to regulate those interstate, that is state border, circumstances where one state erects a barrier that prevents a truck from going into the state because they want to have a monopoly of trucking inside the state or something like that.
That's where Congress rightfully acts under the Commerce Clause.
The notion that Congress can enact any regulation over your life And argue that it affects commerce, that there's some substantial effect or some way – and by substantial, the word substantial here really has become meaningless because it's virtually any effect.
It's even the aggregation of individual effects that the court looks to.
So that is a justification.
In other words, you turn the Commerce Clause into from – A vehicle to limit the state's ability to block a free market activity and you shift it around to a vehicle for the federal government to regulate every aspect of our lives.
That's obviously a contradiction of the framers' intent.
It's insane.
I remember even the TSA's blog said that the TSA has this authority to reach down your pants And grope your genitals because of the Commerce Clause.
Now, it's a completely outlandish, gross violation, gross government expansion.
We could talk about this all day, Jonathan, but we've got to wrap this up.
The book is Restore the Republic.
The website is emord.com, and I do want to interview you on another segment, Jonathan, about your book.
Let's talk about that.
So, folks, share this video.
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Thank you, Jonathan, for joining me today.
Thank you, Mike.
Great to have you on.
This republic is a very fragile thing, and if we don't defend it, we will lose it.
It will erode, as Jonathan alluded to.
This is Mike Adams with the Health Ranger Report on naturalnews.com.
Take care.
Take care.
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