A.S. Haley: Does Obamacare Negate Its Own Insurance?

posted February 28, 2012

A brief recently filed by the Institute for Justice as a friend of the court (amicus curiae) in the Obamacare case now pending before the United States Supreme Court raises a most interesting point: contracts must be entered into voluntarily to be valid and enforceable. (This is what lawyers call "hornbook law": it is fundamental to the law of contracts, and has been with us since the very beginnings of the legal system.)

A contract entered into under duress, such as threat of sanctions, retaliation or punishment, on the other hand, is unenforceable, and may be set aside in court. That is because to make a valid contract, the law requires a "meeting of the minds" -- two individuals must come freely together, and freely decide and agree on the same terms for their contract. If one of those minds is under duress, it cannot meet the other in the free and voluntary sense which the law requires to make a contract.

The so-called "individual mandate" in Obamacare requires that everyone purchase a healthcare insurance policy, under threat of fines and, eventually, imprisonment for refusal to pay the fine. A more classic case of forcing people into a contract under duress could scarcely be imagined. the rest

Obama: Pastor-in-Chief