Not sure if this is really a diary, but hey . . . sue me (I could use the business).
So, in light of the slavering, wild-eyed declarations that Congress has no power under the Commerce Clause to regulate insurance, much less mandate insurance (yes, yes, I know the "mandate is really just an excise tax, but let's play along with the wingnuts for a moment), let's see just how much the average Kossack knows (or can guess) on the matter.
This is a lengthy excerpt from a decision of the Supreme Court overruling a lower decision ruling that Congress could not regulate the business of insurance under the Commerce Clause because such a business was not . . . wait for it . . . commerce. (Really? Yes, really, the business of insurance was not commerce).
The question is: How long has the following decision been the law of the land? (in the United States of Reality that is. In Beckipalinstan, well that's another matter . . . but at least you can see Russia from there.) Answer in the comments.
The modern insurance business holds a commanding position in the trade and commerce of our Nation. Built upon the sale of contracts of indemnity, it has become one of the largest and most important branches of commerce. Its total assets exceed [very large number], or the approximate equivalent of the value of all farm lands and buildings in the United States. Its annual premium receipts exceed [another very large number], more than the average annual revenue receipts of the United States Government during the last decade. Included in the labor force of insurance are [big number] experienced workers, almost as many as seek their livings in coal mining or automobile manufacturing. Perhaps no modern commercial enterprise directly affects so many persons in all walks of life as does the insurance business. Insurance touches the home, the family, and the occupation or the business of almost every person in the United States. This business is not separated into [50] distinct territorial compartments which function in isolation from each other. Interrelationship, interdependence, and integration of activities in all the states in which they operate are practical aspects of the insurance companies' methods of doing business. A large share of the insurance business is concentrated in a comparatively few companies located, for the most part, in the financial centers of the East. Premiums collected from policyholders in every part of the United States flow into these companies for investment. As policies become payable, checks and drafts flow back to the many states where the policyholders reside. The result is a continuous and indivisible stream of intercourse among the states composed of collections of premiums, payments of policy obligations, and the countless documents and communications which are essential to the negotiation and execution of policy contracts. Individual policyholders living in many different states who own policies in a single company have their separate interests blended in one assembled fund of assets upon which all are equally dependent for payment of their policies. The decisions which that company makes at its home office-the risks it insures, the premiums it charges, the investments it makes, the losses it pays-concern not just the people of the state where the home office happens to be located. They concern people living far beyond the boundaries of that state.
The power confided to Congress by the Commerce Clause is declared in The Federalist to be for the purpose of securing the 'maintenance of harmony and proper intercourse among the States.' But its purpose is not confined to empowering Congress with the negative authority to legislate against state regulations of commerce deemed inimical to the national interest. The power granted Congress is a positive power. It is the power to legislate concerning transactions which, reaching across state boundaries, affect the people of more states than one;-to govern affairs which the individual states, with their limited territorial jurisdictions, are not fully capable of governing. This federal power to determine the rules of intercourse across state lines was essential to weld a loose confederacy into a single, indivisible nation; its continued existence is equally essential to the welfare of that nation.
Our basic responsibility in interpreting the Commerce Clause is to make certain that the power to govern intercourse among the states remains where the Constitution placed it. That power, as held by this Court from the beginning, is vested in the Congress, available to be exercised for the national welfare as Congress shall deem necessary. No commercial enterprise of any kind which conducts its activities across state lines has been held to be wholly beyond the regulatory power of Congress under the Commerce Clause. We cannot make an exception of the business of insurance.