March 27, 2012 12:07PM 

# ObamaCare in Four Words 

By [Caleb O. Brown](https://www.cato.org/people/caleb-o-brown) 

---

<a class="js-popover-trigger cursor-pointer popover-trigger" data-bs-placement="bottom" data-bs-trigger="click" id="popover-trigger"> 

SHARE 

</a> 

Cato Senior Fellow [Randy E. Barnett](https://www.cato.org/people/randy-barnett) argued on behalf of [Angel Raich](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich) at the Supreme Court in 2004. It was the [last big case](https://www.cato.org/publications/legal-briefs/raich-v-gonzales) at the High Court dealing with broad federal assertions of power under the Commerce Clause. On Friday at the Cato Institute’s new F.A. Hayek Auditorium, Barnett laid out the four words that define ObamaCare’s individual mandate: unprecedented, uncabined, unnecessary, and unconstitutional.

Barnett and I [chatted for a bit](https://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/obamacares-unprecedented-intrusion) about whether Antonin Scalia is bound to uphold the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) based on [his opinion in Raich](https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/what-was-scalia-thinking).

You can watch the full event from Friday [here](https://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=9074).

##### Related Tags 

[Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) 

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).