SO NOW IT’S ILLEGAL to pay for your own healthcare out of your own pocket?

“I hold that there is a rational basis for Congress to conclude that individuals’ decisions about how and when to pay for health care are activities that in the aggregate substantially affect the interstate health care market,” ruled U.S. District Judge Norman Moon, a Clinton appointee. “Nearly everyone will require health care services at some point in their lifetimes, and it is not always possible to predict when one will be afflicted by illness or injury and require care.…

“Far from ‘inactivity,’ by choosing to forgo insurance, Plaintiffs are making an economic decision to try to pay for health care services later, out of pocket, rather than now, through the purchase of insurance. As Congress found, the total incidence of these economic decisions has a substantial impact on the national market for health care by collectively shifting billions of dollars on to other market participants and driving up the prices of insurance policies.”

OK, fine. So let’s enshrine that in granite. Start by making it illegal for any current or former elected or appointed federal official to spend so much as one thin dime out of his or her pocket on his or her (family’s) healthcare. Tough luck if the insurance company’s ‘death panel’ decides not to fund the care.

Question: would former president Clinton be alive today if his quadruple heart bypass had been funded entirely by insurance?