More Constitutionality Arguments Against ObamaCare

The January 2, 2010 Wall Street Journal has published an opinion piece by US Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Kenneth Blackwell, and Kenneth Klukowski entitled, "Why the Health-Care Bills Are Unconstitutional".

In particular, they offer three major arguments:

1) The individual mandate falls outside of various Congressional powers typically used to justify the mandate -- such as the power to "tax and spend", the power to regulate interstate commerce, and the "general welfare" clause.

2) The various state-specific deals that were cut with individual Senators to secure the 60 vote run afoul of the general welfare clause.

3) The requirements that state governments establish insurance exchange violates federalism.

(Read the full text of "Why the Health-Care Bills Are Unconstitutional".)

I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable about Constitutional law to know whether such challenges would have merit.

And I believe that any long-range effective opposition to ObamaCare will have to be based on fundamental moral and philosophical arguments, as opposed to more derivative Constitution-based arguments.

But I suspect we will be hearing more about such legal arguments in the near future.