Dec 13 2010
Obamacare’s Individual Mandate Unconstitutional
Just like the government cannot demand you buy and eat vegetables for lunch and dinner or else pay a fine, it is obvious the government cannot mandate an individual own health insurance of a certain limited and fixed type (or else get one of those marvelous waivers from Team Obama – campaign donation required of course). So says a federal Judge from the home state of the US Constitution:
A federal judge declared the Obama administration’s health care law unconstitutional Monday, siding with Virginia’s attorney general in a dispute that both sides agree will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
…
Virginia Republican Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli filed a separate lawsuit in defense of a new state law that prohibits the government from forcing state residents to buy health insurance. However, the key issue was his claim that the federal law’s requirement that citizens buy health insurance or pay a penalty is unconstitutional.
Hudson, a Republican who was appointed by President George W. Bush, sounded sympathetic to the state’s case when he heard oral arguments in October, and the White House expected to lose this round.
The left has gone way too far in dictating how Americans must live their lives. This is why there are limits on pre-existing conditions and caps, so no one can walk in after 20 years of not paying premiums and acquire top end coverage. The truth is, everyone can access insurance – the question is can they afford it.
I agree with limits on pulling insurance if someone has payed in and been covered over their life. Pre-existing conditions should not impact those who are forced to switch jobs and coverage. Enough people pay in without being paid out for anything significant that this employee churn should not be a issue.
But those who don’t pay for coverage over time should pay a heavy penalty when they finally want to get coverage. Such is life and the ramifications of individual choices. If people want choice, they need to accept responsibility.
The Government has been requiring Social Security recipients to buy Medicare Ins. since 1965. Most of the poor elderly do not object since they couldn’t afford coverage under regular ins. plans and those who can afford private ins. like the cut rate premiums for first class care. . However the Medicare Part D drug plan is something else. I can buy my maintenance drurgs for High Blood pressure, thyroid , arthritis and antibiotics from foreign pharmacies for less that the Medicare co pay for a doctors visit. You can locate reputable foreign pharmacies at dryugbuyers.com. I recently purchased two hundred 200 mgs. generic Celebrex from a foreign pharmacy for $55. I purchase all my drugs from the same source. Yet I have been forced to pay AARP $26 per month for a drug ins. plan that I do not use. I chose AARP because it was the cheapest plan available, and I knew I would not be using it but was required to buy into one of the plans by government mandate. . AARP recently notified me that the rate was going up to $36 per month. If this ruling cancels the government requirement that everyone has to buy medical coverage, can it be construed to mean that the government requirement that all SS recipients must buy into a Part D durg plan is also illegal?
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momdear1, I buy Walmart-Humana for $14 a month. Like you I buy my medication from another country because my insurance dropped the one medication I use. So this year I switched to Walmart-Humana which my same pharmacy will fill prescriptions if need be.
momdear1, I buy Walmart-Humana for $14 a month. Like you I buy my medication from another country because my insurance dropped the one medication I use. So this year I switched to Walmart-Humana, to be in compliance with medicare rules at the cheapest possible price.
I hope the time has come that the trend of power accruing to the federal govt starts to reverse. For years we’ve been hearing about how smart these people are and they can make all the decisions for all of us yada yada yada… look what belief in that canard has gotten us, a flat-lining economy and trillions of dollars in debt. And what do the “smart people” come up with? Dream up another unsustainable entitlement and print more monopoly money.
The truth is politicians are not good at anything except winning elections. Allowing these fools to make important decisions that affect everyone’s life is like letting Mortimer Snurd pilot the Space Shuttle. Let’s bring decisions back to the state level where we can at least vote with our feet when those politicians inevitably screw up. Save the important decisions like deciding when to have National Dog Poop Cleanup Week for the giant brains in Congress.
AJ,
You missed the important part of the ruling .
From a lawyer friend of mine:
“It was interesting, as a lawyer, to see a federal judge say he doesn’t care whether there is or isn’t a severance clause because he’s a federal judge and can do anything he wants. He severed the mandate from the rest, so as to void only the mandate, even though all the normal constitutional law rules require that all of statutes without severance clauses are unconstitutional if any part is knocked out. None of the law blogs or legal commentators I know of expected this.”
If American law is what ever the last black robe said 15 minutes ago, with no respect for past legal precedent, legislatures, ballot measures or what other black robes say, it isn’t law.
It is tyranny.
Americans have an answers for such things.
Elections are the best answer…but there are others.
Trent, I’m not so bothered by the Judge’s decision that severability was implied. He knows that this is going to the Supreme Court, and that they will make the ultimate decision. All he had to do was to start the ball rolling in that direction, which he did.
Also, it doesn’t really matter if the rest is dropped or not; if the mandate goes, the entire structure collapses. What makes this satisfying is that this Judge made his ruling for the *exact* reason that I and a large number of legal scholars have been saying right from the start; this is a gross violation of our principle of limited government, since if the Commerce
Clause can be used to penalize people for *not* doing something (in this case, not buying insurance) then there is no theoretical limit whatsoever on the Federal Govm’ts
power.
from today’s decision:
“Hudson rejected the government’s argument that it has the power under the Constitution to require individuals to buy health insurance, a provision that was set to take effect in 2014. “Of course, the same reasoning could apply to transportation, housing or nutritional decisions,” Hudson wrote. “This broad definition of the economic activity subject to congressional regulation lacks logical limitation” and is unsupported by previous legal cases around the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.”
Now he has just thrown out the mandate, not the entire act, and it’s supporters will try to pretend that “It’s only a flesh wound!” But it’s important to remember why that mandate
to buy insurance is in there. A key part of the bill is the promise to allow anyone to buy insurance at any time, no one can be turned down. If there is no mandate, then why would
any healthy person ever buy insurance? You just pay out of pocket, and whenever there’s a bad diagnosis you go buy your insurance for which you cannot be turned down and let them
pay. The reason we don’t do that now is because you will be turned down and have no insurance if you try that. Obamacare did away with that.
Now, of course this leads very quickly to a situation where only sick people have insurance and no one who is healthy pays in. Since insurance is a risk sharing mechanism which only works
if healthy payers outnumber the sick ones, this very quickly leads to the collapse of the health insurance system nationwide. Sticking to this plan without the mandate will require every insurance company in the nation to either get out if the business or declare bankruptcy as soon as the law went into effect.
Will this happen? No, I think Obamacare will be repealed before it gets to this point. In fact, my entire point is this: If this ruling stands (and I think it will) Obamacare HAS to be
repealed or else the entire health care system that we have today is going to collapse by 2014!
now pardon me while I do the “I Told You So!” dance for all the liberals who ignored those of us who said this was exactly what would happen!!!
Thanks for the answer, Trent. When the news broke out, my first thought was actually a question regarding the severance clause.
So why did this judge do it????
Didn’t Bush appoint this judge? That’s crazy!
So two judges ruled the individual mandate constitutional and this judge ruled it unconstitutional?
Then we wait for Florida…..what do you think will happen?
“Just like the government cannot demand you buy and eat vegetables for lunch and dinner or else pay a fine”
Quick, someone better tell Michelle! That condescending witch says that deciding what kids eat “just can’t be left up to the parents”.
http://www.breitbart.tv/michelle-obama-on-child-nutrition-we-cant-just-leave-it-up-to-the-parents/
Again, the severability issue is not that important. A limited decision is *far* more likely to be upheld by the Supreme Court than a broad, activist one – the SCOTUS has been knocking down 9th circuit decisions for years just to try and get this message across.
And if this is upheld by the Supreme Court – which I think it will be – Obamacare is dead, for the reasons I stated above.
Momdear. I may be incorrect but I don’t believe SS recipients are REQUIRED to buy Medicare and I am positive that they are not required to buy Part D. The only time you are required to buy Part A or B is if you want supplemental and that is never REQUIRED. If I am wrong on this please let me know. I’ve been on Medicare for 5 years.
Note: AJ I was able to log in on iPhone but no computer.
Interesting twist on this making it to the SCOTUS-Kagan will most recuse herself from the case. Here is quote from the Washington Post via American Thinker:
“…here’s the tricky part: Justice Elena Kagan, having served in the Obama Justice Department, is surely to recuse herself. With the “liberals” one judge down, even a Kennedy vote to uphold the individual mandate would presumably result in a 4-4 tie. And guess what? If there is a tie, the lower ruling stands. In other words, this is really?bad for ObamaCare advocates.”
Also, Redstate has an interesting interview with Cuccinelli.
http://www.redstate.com/ben_domenech/2010/12/14/ken-cuccinelli-talks-about-his-victory-over-obamacare/
He validates what WWS says, without the mandate Obamacare will fail since it is the funding mechanism of the program.
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HHHmmm….just read the interview between Cucinelli and Foster over at NRO. That interview indicated that they didn’t think Kagan will recuse herself.
So, which one is correct?
Lurker,
Who knows. Kagan has been pretty good a recusing herself when necessary. In this case it would be necessary if her decisions were based on principle. But we know how well liberals are when it comes to principles. One word from Obama and she will be sitting on the case. I guess the question would be is she the one who decides when to recuse herself from a case or are there others involved in the decision?
alert, as per your question on recusal: this sounds crazy, but there are no formal procedures governing recusal for Supreme Court Justices. Lower courts, yes, but not the Supremes. Recusal is completely up to the discretion of the individual Justice.
So if Kagan decides not to recuse herself, then that’s it. The worst “punishment” she could get at that level for not recusing herself when she should is that the Chief Justice might look sternly at her during opening arguments.