Two experts writing in the Los Angeles Times offer some legal advice about current proposals to require everyone in America to obtain health insurance: They're probably unconstitutional.

Karl Manheim, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, and Jamie Court of the Santa Monica-based Consumer Watchdog explain that a government mandate requiring people to purchase private insurance is either a constitutionally forbidden "taking" (of money) or a violation of constitutionally protected due process.

They say a mandate would mean that the federal government would be requiring people to buy a good (health insurance) offered by private businesses, implicitly delegating taxing power to private business. The Constitution explicitly delegates taxing authority to the Congress (Article 1, Sec. 8).

Yes, states can and do require people to buy automobile insurance or install fire sprinklers in a house. "But in such cases, the 'mandate' is discretionary -- you don't have to drive a car or build a house," they write.

The same is true with requiring vaccinations for children enrolling in public schools: Parents have the option of sending their children to private schools or to home school them.

But a health insurance mandate would not, by definition, be optional. "A health insurance mandate is essentially a forced contract."

If government were instituting new taxing powers requiring everyone to enroll in a government program, that would actually pose less of a constitutional problem, they say.

So is Massachusetts' individual mandate unconstitutional? Probably. "These 'unfunded mandates' are unlike any form of government regulation we've seen," they write.

But someone has to take it to court first, and I'm not aware of any court challenges, at least yet.

So here's an interesting prospect: Do we want to spend the next 10 years battling in the courts over the constitutionality of an individual mandate for health insurance? Or do we want to actually spend that time trying to give people more options of more affordable, private coverage?