You'll Be Comin' Down Highly publicized lawsuits by the Commonwealth of Virginia and by a coalition of states and private parties have raised powerful challenges to a provision contained in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, better known as ObamaCare) that requires private citizens to purchase health insurance or else pay a penalty or tax starting in 2014. The central question is whether the Constitution's Commerce Clause, coupled with the Necessary and Proper Clause, permits the federal government to compel a private transaction (the purchase of health insurance). The prompt, forceful articulation of this question, in public and in the courts, is a sign of political health--a free country's paraphrase of Monty Python: "We aren't dead yet."
