{"id":73,"date":"2011-02-01T07:35:56","date_gmt":"2011-02-01T14:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andarian.com\/RepealTheBailouts\/?p=73"},"modified":"2022-07-29T21:52:12","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T21:52:12","slug":"obamacare-ruled-unconsitutional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culture.andarian.net\/parallel\/politics\/obamacare-ruled-unconsitutional\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Obamacare’ Ruled Unconsitutional"},"content":{"rendered":"

As reported in the news yesterday<\/a>, The ‘Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’ — colloquially known as ‘Obamacare’ — has been ruled to be unconstitutional, in its entirety<\/em>, by a Florida court. This is the case in which 26 US states<\/em><\/span> <\/span>filed suit (not including Virginia, which filed separately) to overturn the act.<\/p>\n

In his ruling, Judge Roger Vinson found that the so-called “individual mandate” to buy health insurance violated the US Constitution. He further declared that since the individual mandate was not “severable” from the rest of the act, that all of it had to be thrown out:<\/p>\n

For the reasons stated, I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate… Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Judge Vinson gets to the heart of the issue with this gem:<\/p>\n

It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place. If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain for it would be \u201cdifficult to perceive any limitation on federal power\u201d [Lopez, supra, 514 U.S. at 564], and we would have a Constitution in name only.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Furthermore, Judge Vinson made it clear that that his ruling is intended to immediately stop the implementation of Obamacare:<\/em><\/p>\n

“Injunctive relief is an \u201cextraordinary…\u201d and \u201cdrastic\u201d remedy… It is even more so when the party to be enjoined is the federal government, for there is a long-standing presumption \u201cthat officials of the Executive Branch will adhere to the law as declared by the court. As a result, the declaratory judgment is the functional equivalent of an injunction.\u201d See Comm. on Judiciary of U.S. House of Representatives v. Miers, 542 F.3d 909, 911 (D.C. Cir. 2008); accord Sanchez-Espinoza v. Reagan, 770 F.2d 202, 208 n.8 (D.C. Cir. 1985) (\u201cdeclaratory judgment is, in a context such as this where federal officers are defendants, the practical equivalent of specific relief such as an injunction . . . since it must be presumed that federal officers will adhere to the law as declared by the court<\/span>\u201d) (Scalia, J.) (emphasis added).<\/p>\n

“There is no reason to conclude that this presumption should not apply here. Thus, the award of declaratory relief is adequate and separate injunctive relief is not necessary.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For the record I think that the last paragraph is a bit naive when applied to the scoundrels in the current administration. Indeed, I’ve already seen that assessment confirmed in news reports stating that the law will continue to be implemented, contrary to the clear language of the judge’s ruling:<\/p>\n

“The White House, taking a long view of the many legal challenges to what critics call “Obamacare,” is continuing to implement key provisions of the law pending a final decision by the courts. The administration plans to appeal the Florida decision.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are many things that can be said about the moral and legislative debacle that has become known as ‘Obamacare,’ but I’ll restrict myself for now to the following observations. Over half of the US States<\/em> object so vehemently to this law that they are suing the Federal government to have it enjoined. Members of many state legislatures have openly started talking about passing state laws to nullify it. Washington was flooded with letters and protesters against it when it was passed, and polls consistently show that over half of the country supports its repeal. And the first legislative act of a new House majority, swept into power by the largest swing in congressional representation in generations, was pointedly<\/em> to pass just such a repeal. When all of that is happening nearly a year into its history<\/em>, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the legislation in question.<\/p>\n

There is no saving ”Obamacare.” It is fundamentally misguided, economically destructive, repugnant to the individual rights guaranteed by our nation’s constitution, and profoundly immoral. The sooner that it is permanently voided in its entirety, and we can turn to passing legislation that will actually<\/em> reform health care in the US, the better. These would include such policies as the expansion of HDHPs and HSAs, reform of the discriminatory tax system, tort and mandate reform, and so on — in short, the basic reforms outlined in John Mackey’s Wall Street Journal Article<\/a> from a year and a half ago. The Democratic majority in the 111th Congress deliberately shut out any discussion of these rational, common sense, and free market solutions to our health care crisis, and it is long past time that they were put back on the table.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As reported in the news yesterday, The ‘Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’ — colloquially known as ‘Obamacare’ — has been ruled to be unconstitutional, in its entirety, by a Florida court. This is the case in which 26 US states filed suit (not including Virginia, which filed separately) to overturn the act. 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