Arguments have concluded at the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's signature legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obama-care.

A ruling is expected in June. The court will decide whether Congress has the power under the Constitution's interstate commerce clause to require private individuals to purchase government-approved private health insurance or pay a penalty.

The court also is asked to rule on whether Congress can dictate to states a vast, expensive expansion of Medicaid.?

Ultimately, upholding or striking down some or all of the health-care law will likely rest with the generally moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, appointed in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan.

For those who believe Obama-care is an unconstitutional expansion of government power, Justice Kennedy gave reason to hope the worst part of the law will be struck down.

"Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?" Kennedy asked government lawyers. He suggested the 2010 law involves a power "beyond what our cases allow" in regulating interstate commerce. Moreover, Justice Kennedy said the individual mandate would fundamentally "change the relationship" between government and citizens.

Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia was more blunt: "Government is supposed to be a government of limited powers. What is left if the government can do this? What can it not do?"?

The Constitution has morphed into something the founders would have difficulty recognizing. While government can be the glue holding together a lawful nation, it is not — and should not be — a substitute for personal responsibility. When we look to government to make health care accessible, for example, we ask government to do something it is not intended, or well-suited, to do. The founders intended the federal government to protect people from infringements on their God-given rights. As desirable as it may be to make health care universal and accessible, it is something for which government is not well-equipped. Government's role for decades has been shifting from protector of rights to provider of benefits. Obama-care is where that statist drift has taken the nation. The health care law imposes literally hundreds of ambiguously worded new requirements, mandates and costs, the fine points of which will be determined by unelected bureaucrats, at the behest of administration political appointees.

As rules are drafted, there will be no end of infringements on individuals' legitimate rights. A prime example is the new requirement that religious institutions' insurance must cover abortion-inducing drugs, even when to do so violates an institution's beliefs.

It is to be hoped the high court reverses this ominous trend to more expansive government and its resultant infringement on constitutional rights.

REPRINTED FROM THE NEW BERN SUN JOURNAL