Our President got elected by a coalition of government employees, people that depend on a government check, and ignoramuses.  If the ignoramus vote splits 50/50, there’s no way Mr. Obama wins.   

Now we see that a gang of conservative lawyers are challenging the constitutionality of the AHCA (Affordable Health Care Act of 2009).  They argue that the Commerce Clause doesn’t grant the government the power to require an individual to buy a product or service.  The government responds that the Act doesn’t really require anyone to buy, lookit, those that choose not to buy will be subject to a tax, Mr. Obama’s assurances that it’s “absolutely not a tax” notwithstanding.  Sort of like a sales tax for not buying.

Who are the people that won’t buy the insurance?  I’d think the largest group is going to be young adults, although insurance companies are going to permit parents to cover their children to age 27.   So as a practical matter the folks that will pay the penalty rather than buy the insurance will probably be age 27 to 39 or so.  The 39 number is arguable, but that seems to me to be about the time when advancing age starts to make people do the kind of things that the preachers are taking credit for. 

Of course, the government employees and the people that rely on entitlements all have health insurance.  It’s the ignoramuses that don’t.

I’m struck by the irony of this:  this band of conservatives lawyers are basically arguing that the AHCA is unfair to American ignoramuses to a degree that’s un- Constitutional.   Conservatives are carrying water for a group of people that split 90/10 for Mr. Obama and are too stupid to realize they had a target on their backs.   

Endnote:  evidently conscientious objectors can go without coverage and escape the penalty.  I guess that’s some really fundamentalist Christian sects, Quakers, and Muslims.  On the face of it, the Quakers offer the best package.  Seventy-two virgins sounds enticing but, my luck, they’d all look like Susan Boyle.