Breaking NYT: Flordia judge declares health care law unconstitutional

[Hawaii Hiker]

Let me guess, the judge, whose name i don't even know yet, was likely appointed by a republican...

Conservatives don't give a damn about judicial activism as long as it suits their wims..

http://www.nytimes.com/

[woolldog]

1. Reagan appointee

Kind of fitting though. Obama tried to compromise on this issue and got burned. If he had just enacted a public option, that wouldn't have been found unconstitutional. He took the easy way out with his plan, and is paying for it now. Not saying the SC will find it unconst. But there's a much better chance they find the mandate unconst than a public option.

[phleshdef]

4. Yea, if had not backed down on the PO, a bill wouldn't have passed at all, so it definately would...

...not have been found unconstitutional that way.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[woolldog]

8. When you say "backed down", that implies that

he stood up for it at some point. He never fought for it, so we don't know what would've happened.

[phleshdef]

10. Maybe you don't know, but I do. I learned to count at a very young age.

[woolldog]

11. Did you also learn to predict the future at a young age?

If not, then you don't know what would've happened had Obama used his leadership, and the full force of his personality, intellect, and eloquence on the issue. It would've required some arm twisting, some hard negotiations and vote wrangling certainly. The point is he never tried.

[phleshdef]

13. You watch too much television.

But aside from that, there was arm twisting and hard negotiations and vote wrangling for the bill in general and there were calls from the President for the public option to be created on several occasions. I'm well read on what went down during the healthcare debate and we almost lost the whole thing as it was. You don't throw the whole thing away because you can't get the votes for one item. You pass the rest and live to pursue that one item another day, which is exactly what happened and if some so called progressives would drop the whine fest over it and get back to the kind of grass roots activism that got us the majority in the first place, then thats the only chance we have of actually getting a public option in the future. I may not be able to completely predict the future, but I can predict this much. Without a filibuster proof majority made up of at least 60 Senators willing to advance the progressive agenda, then the progressive agenda will not be advanced, period.

[Ikonoklast]

19. C'mon, it works in the movies. Or on TV.

People *need* to blame Obama.



Don't place the blame on Senators that wouldn't vote for a PO, no matter what.

It messes with their narrative.

[boppers]

25. C'mon, doncha know that if there's a training montage, they always win in the end?

*Especially* if it involves upbeat late 80's synth drums.

[phleshdef]

29. LOL. "Your the BEST! Around!"

[NYC Liberal]

12. LOL, yeah this was the "easy way out"...right...nt

[GSLevel9]

24. +10000

as it's written, Obama's legislation IS unconstitutional.

Time to start work on a Public Option, NOW!!

[BklnDem75]

31. Yeah! With a Repuke controlled House, it should be easy!

Really dude... wake up

[ProSense]

2. It's the conservative way

Think Progress: Lower Courts Struck Down Social Security, Voting Rights Act, Civil Rights Act and Minimum Wage Before SCOTUS Upheld Them

<...>

• Minimum Wage: In United States v. Darby, the Supreme Court upheld a federal minimum wage and overruled a prior decision striking down federal child labor laws. This decision reversed a district judge’s opinion declaring the minimum wage unconstitutional.
  
  
• Social Security: In Helvering v. Davis, the Supreme Court reversed a court of appeals decision declaring Social Security unconstitutional.
  
  
• Whites-Only Lunch Counters: In Katzenbach v. McClung, the Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on whites-only lunch counters — reversing a district court’s decision striking down this law.
  
  
• Voting Rights Act In Katzenbach v. Morgan, the Supreme Court reversed a district court decision striking down a portion of the Voting Rights Act (the Court since stepped back from the reasoning applied in Morgan, but the Voting Rights Act remains good law).

<...>

[truebrit71]

3. Damned Activist Judges!!!

...

[Skink]

5. Wouldn't the only judge allowed to make a ruling be a federal Judge?

[jenmito]

7. It will end up at the Supreme Court. n/t

[vaberella]

15. Apparently it was always the intention. I remember an Admin rep stated..they're ready for it.

But I don't trust the Supreme Court to side with Obama.

[nsd]

14. Vinson is a federal judge, at the District level. /nt

[flpoljunkie]

16. FL AG ensured they would draw a Republican-appointed judge by filing lawsuit in Pensacola.

The ruling by Judge Vinson, a senior judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan, solidified the divide in the health litigation among judges named by Republicans and those named by Democrats.

In December, Judge Henry E. Hudson of Federal District Court in Richmond, Va., who was appointed by President George W. Bush, became the first to invalidate the insurance mandate. Two other federal judges named by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, have upheld the law.

The Florida plaintiffs ensured they would draw a Republican-appointed judge by filing the lawsuit in Pensacola.

Like Judge Hudson before him, Judge Vinson declined to enjoin the law and ruled that it could remain in place pending appeals. The insurance requirement, known as the individual mandate, does not take effect until 2014.

(Emphasis mine.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/us/01ruling.html?hp

[ShadowLiberal]

17. Just another reason I have almost zero respect for GOP judges, they're politicians in a robe

For all the screaming about judicial activism from the rightwing it's their own judges who most often engage in it, yet the stupid media won't dare call them out of it.

And none of those idiot right wing judges can explain one thing, if a healthcare mandate is unconstitutional, then why did some of the very people who wrote the constitution and later got elected to congress/whitehouse pass a health care mandate for sailors under John Adam's presidency? It even included a tax on sailors who didn't buy health insurance.

[golfguru]

18. Good riddance of the corporatist HCR bill

There is no legal restraints on premium hikes by for profit health insurance corporations (PHIC)
in the bill. Premium hikes as high as 57% have shown up. The corporations are
free to increase your premiums as high as necessary until their profit goals
are met. The law says they can't spend more than 15% on administrative expenses
but with no limit on premium hikes, that number has essentially no meaning.

The HCR bill prohibits drug importation from abroad which would have saved
millions of dollars to consumers.

No competition to PHIC's from PUBLIC OPTION to keep rate hikes under control.
This was the best effective means of restricting run away rate hikes.

Competition to PHIC from across the state lines by other PHIC's is prohibited.
So each state has it's PHIC's operating as monopolies without outside competition.

[AtomicKitten]

20. Yipee! Back to the preexisting condition exclusion!! Wait, what?!!

:crazy:

[golfguru]

21. Pre-exisiting conditions and what I listed are NOT mutually exclusive

I love that they can't refuse you or cancel you, but why allow them
to increase premiums to their hearts content?

Why no public option as a competing force?

Why we can't shop across state lines for better insurance?

Why we are not allowed to import pharmaceuticals?

Why Why Why? because the freaking for profit private insurers have
all the politicians in their pocket via big campaign cash.

So I am hoping and praying a better bill will emerge. But I won't
hold my breath. I just don't trust most politicians to look out for us.
The campaign cash donors are much more important to them.

[BzaDem]

22. Be careful there. Shopping across state lines would be an insurance company's dream.

They would all go to South Dakota (or whatever the least regulation state is), and use their new state of incorporation to bypass all state health insurance regulation. Just like all the credit card companies did.

And yes. Banning discrimination on the basis of pre-existing conditions is mutually exclusive with "no mandate."

[golfguru]

23. If I don't like what S.Dakota is doing, I can go to other 49 states

[boppers]

26. Are you a health insurance company? No?

Maybe you missed you role in that example. All the insurance companies can move to S. Dakota, and screw the public, just like the credit cards companies all moved.

[golfguru]

27. OK improbable but possible, what about my other 3 items?

[boppers]

28. Those other three are the status quo.

With, or without, the bill, they're the way things currently are. (No bulk imports, no PO, no cost cap).

Repeal leaves them exactly the same way they currently are now.

[Alcibiades]

30. It is probable

If you doubt it, check your credit card billing address. My guess is that it goes to South Dakota or Delaware, even if your bank has its real headquarters elsewhere. It would be a regulatory race to the bottom.

The only bright spot are the state blues, which would probably not be able to move. Of course, I didn't think it would be possible for so many of them to go private for profit, either, so they probably would find a way to work around that, too.

[TheWraith]

32. They CANNOT increase premiums to their heart's content. You're falling for propaganda.

Most of those announced premium increases are never going to be approved by regulators, but they still get announced all the same, and it makes people THINK that the HCR bill is responsible for their bills going up. It's nothing more than a fraudulent attempt to convince people that regulating the insurance industry is bad and drives up costs.