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Challenges to ObamaCare Making Their
Way Through the Courts Part One of Three By Dave Andrusko It's no secret that many, many voters are planning to rush to the polls in less than two weeks for many reasons, but beginning with their wholesale revulsion to ObamaCare and the manner in which it was rammed through the House and Senate and signed into law by pro-abortion President Barack Obama. Republicans are running largely on a promise to "repeal and replace" this massive restructuring of the American health care system. Meanwhile multiple challenges to ObamaCare are winding their way through the legal system. A piece by Mike Lillis that appeared on the blog of "The Hill" newspaper offers a nice overview of one case as well as how the issue is playing out in races around the country. (See http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/124747-healthcare-tuesday-state-suits-looking-more-like-dress-rehearsals-for-high-court.)
Since you can peruse this very readable summary for yourself, let me just highlight what he has to say about the challenge from the Commonwealth of Virginia, which was heard Monday. Lillis writes, "The state's challenge hinges on the argument that Congress's constitutional authority to regulate commercial activity doesn't extend to commercial inactivity, like the decision not to purchase health insurance." He then borrows from an account in the Washington Post where Virginia Solicitor General E. Duncan Getchell is quoted as saying, "The Supreme Court has never allowed inactivity to be regulated as commerce." For his part Judge Hudson put the immediate challenge in context. "As you well know, this is only one brief stop on the way to the United States Supreme Court." Hudson also said he would have a verdict by the end of the year. Elsewhere, as we discussed last Friday, Judge Roger Vinson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida last Thursday rejected the Obama administration's request to throw out the case brought by 20 states. If you do not read an account in the Washington Post carefully, you might conclude that in "dismissing most of the states' other complaints," Judge Vinson left only legal crumbs to consider. In fact many critically important issues are still on the table. As the story points out, Vinson "ruled that they [the 20 states] can contest whether the law's 'individual mandate' requiring virtually all Americans to buy health insurance exceeds Congress's constitutional authority to regulate commerce and make laws 'necessary and proper' for carrying out its powers." In addition, "Vinson ruled that the fee imposed on people who fail to comply with the individual mandate amounts to a 'penalty' rather than a 'tax.' This would mean that Congress's ability to impose it cannot derive from its constitutional powers of taxation." Finally, "Vinson will also permit the states to present arguments on whether the law's expansion of Medicaid to cover not just the very poor but also people who are low-income impinges on state sovereignty because it could require states to spend billions more on the program." Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha. |
