Mailbag:

I did not expect that the first lawsuits against “Obamacare” would challenge the issue of mandatory insurance. After all, this feature of Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts program, adopted by the Senate and the House bills, was not the most hotly opposed feature of the agonizing yearlong shouting match over “health-care reform.”

Now it appears that Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and others have sued on the grounds that there’s nothing in the Constitution that permits the Feds to mandate citizens buy health insurance if they don’t want it.

It’s interesting that it’s not just the “deep South” states, which I would have expected to react to the new law.

Most of the dissenting states are relying on the “Commerce Clause,” which gives states those rights over prerogatives not specifically allocated to the federal government.

This is not likely to work, because the Constitution’s “Supremacy Clause,” which states that federal law trumps state law, has frequently been upheld by the courts. However, because nearly all the lawsuits have been launched by Republicans, and in view of the recent performance of the highest court in the land in disregarding 100 years of legal history, it is entirely possible that the mandatory feature of this sweeping new law may bite the dust.

As a single-payer advocate, I won’t weep if these states prevail, as far as the mandate is concerned.

I can see no useful purpose in forcing people to buy the inferior and unaffordable products of an unnecessary and predatory industry.

I believe you could compare this to forcing people to take out pay-day loans at 400%, or to buy Ford Pintos.

We need health-care reform desperately, but mandating folks to buy health insurance policies from for-profit insurance companies, whose business plan requires them to make money by refusing to pay for necessary health-care services is “unsafe at any speed!”

Felix Schwarz

Irvine

Campbell is hurting America

How can you, U.S. Rep. John Campbell, in good conscience fight to repeal health care for the children, the poor, and more than 40 million Americans?

You cite reckless spending. I would ask you to look at your own voting record. Is that fiscal responsibility? Where are your priorities?

Are you voting for weapons of mass destruction over the American people?

Is the Republican Party so morally bankrupt that they have no compassion for all American citizens, only the wealthy?

In trying to destroy health care, you are destroying Americans.

The party of NO needs to change its attitude and help to change this country for the better. I hope you can help.

Joe Mader

Newport Beach