Judicial Activism and the Affordable Care Act

[The Straight Story]

Today, a judge in Florida issued a decision in a case filed by 25 Republican Attorneys General and Governors striking down the Affordable Care Act. This ruling is well out of the mainstream of judicial opinion. Twelve federal judges have already dismissed challenges to the constitutionality of the health reform law, and two judges – in the Eastern District of Michigan and Western District of Virginia – have upheld the law. In one other case, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia issued a very narrow ruling on the constitutionality of the health reform law’s “individual responsibility” provision and upheld the rest of the law.

Today’s ruling – issued by Judge Vinson in the Northern District of Florida – is a plain case of judicial overreaching. The judge’s decision contradicts decades of Supreme Court precedent that support the considered judgment of the democratically elected branches of government that the Act’s “individual responsibility” provision is necessary to prevent billions of dollars of cost-shifting every year by individuals without insurance who cannot pay for the health care they obtain. And the judge declared that the entire law is null and void even though the only provision he found unconstitutional was the “individual responsibility” provision. This decision is at odds with decades of established Supreme Court law, which has consistently found that courts have a constitutional obligation to preserve as a much of a statute as can be preserved. As a result, the judge’s decision puts all of the new benefits, cost savings and patient protections that were included in the law at risk.

Under today’s view of the law, seniors will pay higher prices for their prescription drugs and small businesses will pay higher taxes because small business tax credits would be eliminated. And the new provisions that prevent insurance companies from denying, capping or limiting your care would be wiped away.

We don’t believe this kind of judicial activism will be upheld and we are confident that the Affordable Care Act will ultimately be declared constitutional by the courts.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/01/31/judicial-activism-and-affordable-care-act

[sharesunited]

1. At least the judge declined to issue an injunction prohibiting implementation.

Now THAT would have been overreaching!

[TheKentuckian]

2. Why in the world would you actually want to set a precedent that this corporately captured

government to have the authority to mandate you purchase a for profit "product"?

A "product" that most people will be forced to purchase purely based on the decision of their employer?

That is fucking insane.

This particularly criminal cartel being the gatekeeper is disgusting but the whole thought is beyond repugnant. You fuckers will have us paying mandated levies to Halliburton rather than paying taxes for police before you know it.

Step toward Single Payer, my ass. This is a march toward corporate control and oversight of the public welfare.

[Statistical]

4. +1. IF (and god help us if the SCTOUS rules that way) th courts find that the federal government...

has the Constitutional authority to mandate Health Insurance Purchases from private 3rd party then it can mandate anything. I mean anything.

Need less polluting cars. Mandate you scrap your old one and mandate you purchase a new one. $5,000 penalty tax each year until until you comply. Penalties doubled after 5 years.
Need more informed electorate. How about Comcast getting a mandate that all consumers I mean citizens need to purchase cable TV, so they can be "informed". Either pay for cable of your tax return is reduced by $500 for the year.

You can string together a compelling government interest for just about anything and that will translate into mandated purchases.

The amount of lobbying this will open up will make corptocracy look downright Democratic. Corporations won't consider the status quo (getting bailouts, special treatments, and tax write offs) good enough now they will want mandated profit streams. Never ending unavoidable streams of cash.

[hansberrym]

3. The common man has no rights the Congressman is bound to respect!

Under the previous Congress view of the CC, we can be forced to buy wheat, even be made to grow wheat, as production for sale is commerce, and quoting from Wickard, which our presumed masters are apt to do, "The stimulation of commerce is a use of the regulatory function quite as definitely as prohibitions or restrictions thereon".


We can also be forced, or "stimulated", to produce cotton by way of Rodgers vs. US read in light of the mandates being constitutional. Which is worse, republicans wanting to take us back to the 1950's, or dems want to take us back to the 1850's?


We already have universal health care, if the price of universal health insurance is loss of our liberty, it is not remotely worth the price.