Michael Burgess: “Well, they may not be constitutional at our level. And the other thing to remember about a mandate, for a mandate to…”

“Well, they may not be constitutional at our level. And the other thing to remember about a mandate, for a mandate to work, you have to know that it's in existence, and you have to know what the penalty is, and the penalty has to be pretty stiff. You alluded to the IRS already. The IRS has a mandate on every one of us that we'll pay Federal income taxes. Every single one of us knows, we may not know exactly what bad thing happens, but we know it's bad, and most of us know we don't want it to happen to us. So what is the compliance rate with the IRS in filing tax returns? Well, it's about 85 percent. What do we have as uninsured in this country right now? About 15 percent. How much more are we going to get coverage if we give up that much freedom by allowing us, us, Congress, to set a mandate as a condition for living in the United States of America? How much more coverage are we going to get? I mean, the point is arguable, but just at first glance, it might not be that much.”