What's worse than a poll tax?

Poll taxes are unconstitutional in the United States. Poll taxes were historically imposed as an obstacle to prevent freed slaves and their descendents from voting. State poll tax laws often waived the tax for anyone who had ever previously voted.

But how about an existence tax that penalizes some people and exempts others? A tax that would be imposed just because you are a United States resident, but waived if you have a certain kind of health insurance policy? Every one of the health-care reform bills promoted by President Obama and the Congressional leadership features a universal mandate: To live in the US, you would either have to get a “qualified” insurance policy or pay a stiff existence tax. In the Constitution, the enumerated powers of Congress certainly do not permit such a Federal mandate; and what a stretch of the Commerce Clause it would be, with no interstate commerce whatsoever entailed! Constitutional law scholars have argued that such a mandate would indeed be unconstitutional, but I recognize that an activist Supreme Court majority can somehow allow laws that unrecognizably distort the meaning of the Constitution. Certainly, however, the mandate would be un-American: Basically a warmed-over poll tax, unlike any duty ever imposed on United States residents in history. Will you vote for a bill grounded on this unconstitutional and un-American mandate, the existence tax?