Trying to "fight" the Health Care Reform Law by saying it is unconstitutional

Well, if an elected official is doing it the best of the three reasons that I can think of is that they are stupid.

Here is my list of reasons: Stupid, Afraid or Evil

If it is a citizen I could add "ignorant" to the list, I will not give an elected official this out since they should know law and history to at least this level of understanding.

Let me explain my list, starting with "stupid". You would have to be pretty stupid not to draw parallels with: Social Security & Medicare. Both of these are federal mandates that have stood the test of constitutionality.

BUT, you say the personal coverage mandate is different! Yes, it is different but in the direction of being MORE constitutional! Under Social Security & Medicare you have no choices, you cannot opt out and you can only "purchase" the one government run option.

Under the personal coverage mandate you can choose from just about any option that is currently available. There are mandates to provide even more options to choose from. And you do have the option to not carry coverage (ok, it's not a free option) if health coverage is just not for you.

This is quite a bit more freedom than what you have with either Social Security or Medicare! Opponents of both of those programs tried the same unconstitutional tactic when they became laws.

Most states now mandate that drivers must carry auto insurance. This is right on point as well, and is again more restrictive than the personal coverage mandate. Almost no states offer any kind of assistance to people that have trouble paying for auto insurance. The health care mandate offers quite a few different ones, both to employers as well as individuals.

Some argue that this example is not valid because if you don't pay for auto insurance you just don't have to drive. While this is true, that does not have any bearing on it's constitutionality. It still is an imposed monetary restriction on a perfectly legal action. And it goes as far to make that action then illegal to perform without auto insurance. So it may not be the same moral argument (and even that is pretty close) it is the very same constitutional law argument.

So back to my list!

So, one could be stupid enough to not appreciate these precedents.

Another explanation would be that they are too afraid to alienate their more rabid constituency. Afraid that they would lose votes if they aren't seen to do something to "fight" this. Personally I feel it would be much better to try to educate them that this is a futile way to do it. Since trying to mount these efforts is going to consume non-trivial amounts of state money, with precisely zero chance of working.

The last explanation on my list is "Evil". They know what they are doing and are doing so to keep discontent, fear and anger going. For what use? I will leave that up your imagination. But the most likely one is just their own personal lust for power.

Any other reasons I missed that belong on my list?