(no subject)

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I'm vaguely surprised that no one has posted here about this yet. And then this morning I tried to search for a news article about it in order to link here and couldn't easily find one, all I found are blog posts.

I do like Mr. Roy's post about it and he references some other comments from The Volokh Conspiracy too.

Yesterday’s Obamacare Ruling
Florida v. HHS: Why Vinson’s Ruling Might Stand

In order to overturn Judge Vinson’s ruling upon appeal, it will be necessary for the government to rebut itself: to disprove its own arguments that the individual mandate is essential to PPACA.

What will happen in the end? It all depends on Anthony Kennedy. Based on Kennedy’s history of splitting the difference, a strong possibility is that Kennedy overturns the individual mandate and other closely related provisions, while upholding other aspects of PPACA. But Judge Vinson has made a persuasive case that we’re better off starting from scratch.

I find it funny that the Left is calling this ruling judicial activism. I guess that's another term that means something different when it's something you agree with compared to when you disagree with it.

I know it's too early to celebrate any kind of real victory, but I heard nothing on the local news, not even a passing mention, and searching Google News comes up with mostly blogs and an article from the Washington Post. There were some articles in foreign newspapers about it though, so that's something.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/31/AR2011013106367.html

You can read the ruling for yourself.

Comments

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed that you and the OP had trouble finding mention of it in the media.

It's front page news on our local paper... but then I am in Florida.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

It was on the NPR newsreel all day long and evening.

[hey-its-michael.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was all they were talking about when I drove home yesterday evening.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

It was all over news programs I watched yesterday and had extensive coverage and lots of talking heads were yakking. If opponents succeed in convincing higher courts that the individual mandate is indeed unconstitutional, they may succeed in bringing their biggest fear - the public option - to reality. Even if the government doesn't have the right to force us to buy health insurance, they clearly have the right to tax us, and they clearly have the right to use their spending power to buy health insurance for us. So they could do exactly that: raise our taxes and provide us with health insurance. Won't happen with the House in Republican hands right now, but that's not a big deal anyway--the appeals will not hit the Supreme Court until 2012 anyway, just in time for another Congressional election. And the law is in effect and pretty much funded and will continue to be in force.

And even if SCOTUS were to rule the mandate is unconstitutional, the law would still be in effect, it's not a "killer." For example, Massachusetts had about 5 percent of its population that didn't participate in its version of mandated coverage.

[hey-its-michael.livejournal.com]

Oh, you and your facts and analysis!

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

A constitutional law we don't like is much better than an unconstitutional law whether we like it or not.

And even if SCOTUS were to rule the mandate is unconstitutional, the law would still be in effect, it's not a "killer."

Maybe you didn't read why that's not the case.

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

Can this law even work without that mandate though? If it doesn't require individuals to have insurance, how can we afford this law? Wont this increase the current problems of our health care system? For example, those without insurance will still use the emergency room for their health care. Insurance companies wont be making any profit because they'll be forced to take the sick and since the healthy wont be required to take health insurance (which is why many of them supported the bill).

http://covertrationingblog.com/weird-fact-about-insurance-companies/why-the-health-insurance-industry-supported-obamacare

Does the recent ruling matter?

[russj.livejournal.com]

While I applaud the popular movement to restrict the ever-growning power of the federal government--real change can only happen in one of two ways:
(1) A new amendment to the constitution is adopted, which expresses these limits in a way that is clear and unambiguous. (I thought that Amendments 9 & 10 are clear enough, so perhaps there is no language that cannot be twisted by the court to suit it's purposes.)
(2) The U.S. Supreme Court reverses it's own precedent, going back to Wickard v. Filburn, (1942) – U.S. Supreme Court decision that changed the interpretation of the “Commerce Clause” (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution).
This precedent removed the Constitutional limitations placed upon Congress’ scope of authority, essentially leaving Article 1 to read “Congress shall have power.”

[a friend reminded me that there is a 3rd option--but I won't name it, since Big Brother is reading these posts...;)[

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110201/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_overhaul

One of the 6 articles that show up when I check my yahoo email.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Funny how that works....perhaps there is some concern amongst the proponents?
Better to avoid than confront? But then it's still early and plenty of time to get out the popcorn :D

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

Q1) "Why is the media ignoring this!?!?!"

A1) "It's not."

Q2) "Why are people in this community focusing on the media instead of the policy!"

A2) "Because you made an issue of it."

Also, perhaps another reason is ambivalence. I for one thought it was a poor compromise in the first place. People who's druthers include public option, or single payer and fully socialized, have no identity investment in the current legislation.

The fulcrum of the current Florida Judge's objection is the requirement of citizens to purchase services. That aspect of the plan was a kludge inserted to placate the insurance industry in the first place, by preserving their middleman role.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

It wasn't even intentional, but it is an interesting effect.

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

...the mere status of being without health insurance, in and of itself, has absolutely no impact whatsoever on interstate commerce (not "slight," "trivial," or "indirect," but no impact whatsoever) -- at least not any more so than the status of being without any particular good or service.

From the judge's decision.

That line of reasoning is plainly incorrect, most simply because uncompensated care is made up for by taxpayers, both local and federal.

How anyone characterizes this line of reasoning as "persuasive" is beyond me.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

It's persuasive because it's accurate. Uncompensated care is not required to be made up for by anyone, so it's not an impact on interstate commerce either.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Necessary and Proper Clause is the obvious answer to why the government gets to do something. If the Right wants the government to stick to the Enumerated Powers then it had better figure out how to negate that particular clause. Otherwise, it's going to support that clause when it's banning marijuana or preventing states from having stricter environmental emissions standards and oppose it when it's gay marriage or this.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

It's not doing such a good job in California. For the most part the left seems to be having things go their way in at least two of those areas and are gaining ground in the 3rd.

[thies.livejournal.com]

I read it on the lamestream media yesterday.

Why I hadn't posted on this one.

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

We now have two Judges who have ruled in favor of the health care law and two who haven't. The only 'blog worthy' part of this ruling is that this judge threw out the whole bill. That part is logical.

The fact that so many companies have received waivers tells you that this bill is going to end up being a boondoggle of sub clauses, fixes (medicare doc fix), special exemptions, and other necessary changes before it can possibily be workable.

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/publius-forum/2011/02/obama-gives-obamacare-waivers-to-28-unions-his-big-donors.html

http://wizbangblog.com/content/2011/01/28/there-are-now-over-700-obamacare-waivers.php

700 waivers and counting FTW.

Re: Why I hadn't posted on this one.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

But isn't that the politicians favorite kind of bill? The kind they can keep companies, Unions and other wealthy organizations coming to them for favors with?

[weswilson]

That makes two federal judges who found the mandate constitutional, and two who found it unconstitutional. I don't see this as any bell-weather ruling, especially since it appears Scalia seems to feel the law is quite constitutional.

As for media coverage, did we hear about the federal cases where it was ruled constitutional? Seems like this ruling is getting FAR more coverage than the previous three.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

What did Scalia say specifically about this?

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

I find it funny that the Left is calling this ruling judicial activism.

Really? I haven't seen any news organization call it that.

I know it's too early to celebrate any kind of real victory, but I heard nothing on the local news, not even a passing mention, and searching Google News comes up with mostly blogs and an article from the Washington Post.

Huh. Fox News was all over it. (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/02/01/obamacare-unconstitutional-judge-vinsons-ruling-important/) It's not really noteworthy, though. The argument Judge Vinson uses to declare unconstitutionality is essentially the same one that Judge Hudson used to declare unconstitutionality in part. (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-13/u-s-health-care-law-requirement-thrown-out-by-judge.html) This makes 2 federal judges declaring unconstitutional...and 2 federal judges declaring constitutional. Impasse.

So, there's no real point in discussing anything until this hits the Supremes. With such division, only a ruling from SCOTUS will have any meaning.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

On the White House’s blog, spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter writes: “Today’s ruling – issued by Judge Vinson in the Northern District of Florida – is a plain case of judicial overreaching.”

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

It reads like a bunch of whining about it too, although I couldn't get past the second paragraph.

I didn't mention Fox News as I figured everyone here would just dismiss that anyways.

[ofbg.livejournal.com]

It's my understanding that Vinson's ruling on the mandate throws out the entire Obamacare law.

That's because in their haste to pass a bill, any bill, they forgot to include a severance clause.

Also the government lawyer that was defending the law, failed to ask for severance so the entire law is gone because of mandated coverage(except appeals of the decision may reverse Vinson).

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

They didn't forget, they explicitly removed it as part of the "compromise". And the law isn't gone until the appeals are heard, as the Vinson didn't enjoin it from being enforced.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

tempest, meet teapot.

The law will be upheld, and the world will not end, and in 40 years, the Republicans in Congress will be shouting about how they won't allow cuts to basic services like SSI and Healthcare.