Posted by Matt Hawes on 11/04/09 7:30 PM Last updated 11/04/09 7:42 PM [Newer: Ron Paul Interviews] [Older: Operation Health Freedom - Judge Napolitano]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHBwmS8g5jc

Judge Napolitano:

The power to regulate interstate commerce, which is specifically given to the Congress in the Constitution, is the power to keep commerce regular between the states; to make certain that the states don't impose tariffs, or absolute barriers to the entry of goods or services from other states. This is Congress' favorite power under the Constitution, and it has used it to justify the regulation of everything from the water we drink, to the air we breathe, to the strength of the flow of the water in your shower, to the size of your toilet bowl, to the number of legs that a desk chair needs to have in the work place.

But there is an area of interstate commerce where Congress has specifically said to the states, "We will not regulate, and you may erect barriers, and you may impose tariffs, and you may prevent out of state commerce from coming into your state," and that's in the case of health care. Each of the 50 states is authorized by an express act of the Congress, and by the Congress' implicit refusal to do anything else about this, to prevent out of state insurance carriers from selling health insurance in their states.

So if I live in New Jersey, which is where I live, I can only buy 1 insurance policy, which is the Rolls-Royce of insurance policies, that requires me to pay for health services that I biologically will never be able to use. I should be able, because I have the natural right to enter into a contract - a binding agreement with whomever I want as long as that agreement doesn't harm anybody else's rights - I should be able to buy a piece of a policy from Texas, and a piece of a policy from Idaho, and a piece of a policy from Montana, and put together the policy that works best for me.

Isn't it odd, that in an area where Congress has tried to regulate everything, claiming it's interstate commerce, it has refused to deregulate something as basic as health insurance. Try and buy health insurance from a carrier in a state where you do not live, and you'll run into this unnatural, unconstitutional impediment.