Zeke Emanuel To Obamacare Foes: 'Government Is Always Violating Your Freedom' (VIDEO)

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court began hearing arguments on Monday in the case challenging President Barack Obama's health care reform law. HuffPost's Mike Sacks was in the courtroom for the session. Afterward, Sacks and HuffPost's Zach Carter spoke live with several protesters and experts who'd also attended the event, including Dr. Ezekiel "Zeke" Emanuel, a former health care adviser to the Obama administration.

Emanuel, a highly respected bioethicist, defended the legal and constitutional grounding of the health care law, which is being challenged by 26 state attorneys general and several private parties. He and Sacks agreed that the justices appeared eager to rule directly on the core constitutional issue involved in the case, with both the liberals and conservatives on the court attacking arguments to throw out the lawsuit based on a technicality.

Emanuel contended that the constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act is simply not very strong. The basic argument presented by congressional Republicans and other opponents of the law is that the "individual mandate" -- which requires all Americans to obtain some form of health insurance -- is an unconstitutional violation of individual liberty.

"I think there is this issue of whether it violates your freedom to make you do things," Emanuel said. "I think, stated that way, the answer is the government is always violating your freedom."

President Obama signed the reform bill into law in March 2010. In addition to the individual mandate, key features of the law include banning insurance companies from discriminating against patients with pre-existing medical conditions and providing financial subsidies to families who cannot afford to buy insurance on their own.

The Supreme Court will be hearing more oral arguments on Tuesday and Wednesday, and is expected to issue a ruling on the health care law by the end of June.

WATCH Mike Sacks and Zach Carter interview Zeke Emanuel above.

Comments

[dawnkucera]

11:40 AM on 03/27/2012

The basic argument presented by congressional Republicans and other opponents of the law is that the "individual mandate" -- which requires all Americans to obtain some form of health insurance -- is an unconstitutional violation of individual liberty.

So where is this "defense of individual liberty" when the GOP wants to tell a woman how to apply health issues to her own body?

[huevos07]

09:11 AM on 03/27/2012

If all those people driving to Obamacare protests are against mandates to buy insurance, we can assume then that they are also protesting having to purchase auto insurance.

[huff reader]

08:54 AM on 03/27/2012

WHY THEY SURE ARE!

Why those suckers FORCE me to drive at least 40MPH down the Interstate!

(My father-in-law is a scofflaw.)

[GeorgeSM]

08:41 AM on 03/27/2012

Whenever people combine to do anything they forfeit some aspect of personal freedom. Welcome to the human race.

[Cacey]

08:12 AM on 03/27/2012

If you choose to live in any type of society you give up some of your freedoms to do so period. This is simply the nature of the social contract. You always have the freedom to live outside that contract by purchasing some piece of property that is large enough and fertile enough to provide for all your needs and live there alone for if anyone else enters that sphere a society has been formed and someone looses some freedom.

[PickOneTwoThree]

09:18 AM on 03/27/2012

Consider traffic lights -the only reason we can safely drive down the street is because we ALL agree to stop at red lights. I guess that's giving up a "right" - but the alternative is worse.

Same with buying health insurance. The costs of health care these days makes it a requirement of living.

[Gonzo333]

08:11 AM on 03/27/2012

Let's talk about the Patriot Act!

[lulubelle1956]

07:48 AM on 03/27/2012

for more than 200 years the states did nothing about health care until mitt romney proposed and passed the individual mandate in MA out of necessity, because people without health insurance were driving costs up for everyone else. and the entire gop/tp touted that plan over the single payer plan. given their druthers, the states would do nothing for another 200 years. time to end the health care insanity in this nation and embrace the romney plan nationwide.

[pinetarred]

06:16 AM on 03/27/2012

This administration has been attacking states rights from day one!

[Cacey]

08:13 AM on 03/27/2012

As well it should. Are we not "One nation, indivisable" as the Pledge states?

[Rosie2]

08:29 AM on 03/27/2012

Explain how.

[Silverado Lady]

03:20 AM on 03/27/2012

You have to give up some freedoms to have real freedom, think about it.

[pinetarred]

06:17 AM on 03/27/2012

Only if you are a WEAKLING and totally brainwashed!

[huff reader]

09:03 AM on 03/27/2012

WHAT???

Are you trying to be funny?

Where to start...

Humans are social animals. We cannot survive alone. (You are free to try this experiment. Go live in the wild for a year, but before you go, get rid of anything you didn't make yourself - and no cheating with cloth you didn't make out of thread you didn't spin out of cotton you didn't grow - And while you're out there, you can only eat what you kill or pick. No guns or knives allowed that you don't make. Or implements. Or shelter.)

Given that we live in societies, the reality is that society determines everything about your existence, whether you live or whether you die.

The only advantage we have here is that our system of governent allows the average citizen to have a say in what those rules are that we have to live by. If we don't like a rule enough, we can get our lawmakers to change it.

But no man has complete freedom - for long. Every freedom we have is tempered by necessary consideration for others.

Afterall, it really IS true that "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose..."

[Zilo]

09:05 AM on 03/27/2012

Fine then. Because I have freedom of religion under this country's constitution and I deem that to be the most important right, my religion says since you're not of my religion, you have no rights. So I now have the right to treat you like you're not a human being. You're okay with that, I assume. The government is NOT allowed to step in as I decide to treat you and all non-practitioners of my faith like crap because that would be a violation of MY right to practice my religion as I see fit.

That's what he's talking about.

[glockman]

08:23 AM on 03/27/2012

Ok, I've thought about it. Now explain it.

[boomcat44]

02:32 AM on 03/27/2012

HP, is it really THAT necessary to use such blatantly misleading headlines to get people to read an article? It's just dishonest and juvenile......how about you treat your readers like ADULTS, and give us some HONEST headlines?
Is that too much to ask?
Politico doesn't resort to cheap stunts like this, why should you?

[marecek]

01:15 AM on 03/27/2012

HuffPost, this is reprehensible that you are constantly using headlines that entirely distort the story and/or us a quote entirely OUT OF CONTEXT. According to the headline, a former Obama advisor is saying that the Obama administration is constantly violating your freedom. In the context of the article, it is clear that he makes that statement premised by the notion "if you accept this weak argument about the individual mandate" then you would have to conclude that the government is violating your freedom constantly. In other words he is attacking the silling argument against the mandate, not criticizing the Obama administration.

How about learning something about journalistic ethics and professionalism.

[omegapoint]

12:43 AM on 03/27/2012

Government or the corporate cabals that government guides all the money to, take your pick. Government doesn't have any money, it passes thru government onto corporate coffers and from there it doesn't trickle down. Take that next step in what you focus your suspicions on,
eventually the fact is, that where the money comes to rest has been the 1% for decades. That government boogeyman is just corporate diverting your attention.

[JBaker]

11:47 PM on 03/26/2012

Can the government intrude into our personal and financial lives? It can and does all the time. Congress may at any moment opt to reinstate the draft, shove you into a uniform and send you off to die in a foreign land on behalf of some oil company. In my lifetime over 100,000 American in uniform, most of them drafted, have been killed in SouthEast Asia. Your obedience to the military rules is mandatory and goes far beyond any 'contract' as we know it: it is slavery.

The part about the insurance coverage I do not like is being mandated to subsidize a private money changer posing as a "health insurance" company. I would not have any problem with a buy-in into Medicare. That option was taken off the table because it threatened the profit line of the private insurance providers. I want the "public option" put back on the table for the consumer to choose.

[glockman]

08:24 AM on 03/27/2012

"Congress may at any moment opt to reinstate the draft, shove you into a uniform and send you off to die in a foreign land on behalf of some oil company"

That doesn't mean it's moral, or even legal.

[huff reader]

09:04 AM on 03/27/2012

Yes. It should have been 'universal Medicare', but our Republican friends guaranteed that wouldn't happen.

[JackBlair69]

10:44 PM on 03/26/2012

But the major question coming up will be whether or not the government can force a citizen to enter into a contract.

[WilliamTheV]

11:44 PM on 03/26/2012

I'm forced to register for the draft at the age of 18, you're forced to have car insurance, the commerce clause can be interpreted very broadly.

[Obama is a neocon]

12:32 AM on 03/27/2012

You're only forced to have car insurance if you own a car and drive it.

[rbchilds]

12:43 AM on 03/27/2012

The Constitution allows for the government to maintain a standing army. Car insurance is not mandatory on the federal level that is a state requirement for liability (protection for others), you do not have to own a vehicle. The commerce clause has been broadly morphed. The most commonly stated decisions in support of ACA is Wickard v Filburn and Gonzales v Raich will be of particular importance. Both cases concerned a fungible commodity. Is ACA a fungible commodity? A fungible commodity is a good or asset's interchangeability with other individual goods/assets of the same type. Assets possessing this property simplify the exchange/trade process, as interchangeability assumes that everyone values all goods of that class as the same. It is a far stretch to call ACA a fungible commodity as the value once exchanged becomes useless (it is not in holder's name) and is not interstate commerce (Insurance by federal law can not be sold across state lines). For the act to pass it will have to be ruled as intrastate commerce (which it is) and a fungible commodity (which it isn't), unless of course the court does as it has the last 70 years and continue to morph the Constitution.

[huff reader]

09:05 AM on 03/27/2012

The government can force you to eat your shoes, if it wants.

[JackBlair69]

05:45 PM on 03/27/2012

Not as long as we have the Second Amendment.

[CroatianCritter]

09:12 PM on 03/26/2012

"I think there is this issue of whether it violates your freedom to make you do things," Emanuel said. "I think, stated that way, the answer is the government is always violating your freedom."

That is what government does. At least he recognizes how truly repulsive and totalitarian this bill will become on the American population. Most people who support this bill still can not see how much this law is going to affect our consumer economy. I just wish people can understand this statement and see how destructive our government is. The only thing it seems to do well is kill foreigners overseas, spend other people's money and allow certain people to control the rest of the population while making themselves personally wealthy through contributions or subsidies.

[marecek]

01:24 AM on 03/27/2012

How dramatic and over the top. You sound incredibly neurotic and paranoid. This bill is not "repulsive and totalitarian". You have evidently been brainwashed by too much "talk" radio. So, explain to me, Einstein, how "this law is going to affect our consumer economy".

[Rosie2]

08:43 AM on 03/27/2012

They never provide explanations, ever notice that? Just Palinistic rhetoric.