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StumbleSUN EDITORIAL:
A poor decision
Judge misses point on health care law, not seeing how everyone is affected
Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.
A federal judge in Richmond, Va., ruled Monday that a key provision of the historic health care law is unconstitutional. Judge Henry Hudson, a George W. Bush appointee, said the “individual mandate,” which requires most Americans to purchase insurance, was beyond the “historical reach” of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, which gives the federal government power to regulate interstate commerce.
The judge said the matter came down to “an individual’s right to choose to participate,” agreeing with the Republican Party, which has argued the law infringes on people’s liberty by forcing them to do something against their will. Hudson wrote that no federal court had “extended Commerce Clause powers to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market.”
Conservatives cheered the ruling, and Republican leaders in Congress once again pledged to repeal the law, citing the judge’s opinion as a major victory. But before conservatives get too giddy, they should remember that Hudson’s ruling comes after two other federal judges have ruled in two separate, but similar, cases that the law is constitutional. The judges, both Bill Clinton appointees, dismissed complaints that the law was a case of Congress overstepping its bounds nor was it taking away people’s liberty.
In October, Judge George Steeh in Detroit said the law doesn’t force people to participate in anything they don’t already take part in. Steeh argued that everyone, minus those who decline treatment due to religious concerns, gets health care at some point, whether or not they have insurance. People who don’t buy insurance make an “economic decision to try to pay for health care services later, out of pocket, rather than now through the purchase of insurance,” Steeh wrote.
But their decision to forgo health insurance affects interstate commerce significantly because the law requires emergency rooms and public hospitals to treat all people, no matter their ability to pay. “The costs of caring for the uninsured who prove unable to pay are shifted to health care providers, to the insured population in the form of higher premiums, to governments, and to taxpayers,” Steeh wrote. The cost shift is significant. Steeh said it totaled $43 billion in 2008.
Judge Norman Moon in Lynchburg, Va., last month made a similar ruling, determining that because of the cost shifting, there is “a rational basis for Congress to conclude that individuals’ decisions about how and when to pay for health care are activities that in the aggregate substantially affect the interstate health care market.”
The absence of the individual mandate, Moon wrote, “would increase the cost of health insurance and decrease the number of insured individuals — precisely the harms that Congress sought to address.”
Indeed.
With other cases challenging the constitutionality of the law in the courts, and appeals planned in these cases, the issue likely won’t be decided until it gets to the Supreme Court.
The law certainly has a constitutional basis. Congress has a right to address health care, which accounts for one-sixth of the nation’s economy, and it has a right to regulate an industry that affects everyone.
The health care system in this country long has been inequitable, benefiting large insurance companies. The new law would make strides toward leveling the playing field, fairly spreading the costs, protecting patients’ rights and driving down premiums. That’s a good deal, yet some conservatives are more interested in protecting the insurance industry over the public, claiming the law violates their liberty. But that’s a disingenuous argument.
The reality is that by providing more equity in the system, the health care law isn’t undercutting liberty, it’s actually upholding it.
Discussion: 3 comments so far…
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The Sun
Locally owned and independent for more than 50 years.
Democrats are losing their principles.
Obama, Reid, and Pelosi have turned their back on their campaign pledges.
Obama, Reid, and Pelosi gave up on the PUBLIC OPTION that would have been legal.
The PUBLIC OPTION would have been true income redistribution
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Obama, Reid, and Pelosi instead of passing the public option decided to pass an INDIVIDUAL MANDATE.
Obama, Reid, and Pelosi knew the individual mandate was unconstitutional at the time it passed.
Democrats gave up on their principles when they gave up on the public option.
Do not blame a Judge for standing up for "an individual's right to choose to participate," when as we knew from the get go that Democrats Obama, Reid, and Pelosi passed a bad bill.
Obama, Reid, and Pelosi have turned their back on his campaign pledges.
Obama, Reid, and Pelosi gave up on the PUBLIC OPTION that would have been
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
"not even in the infamous 1942 case of Wickard v. Filburn -- when the Supreme Court ratified Congress' regulation of what farmers grew in their backyards on the theory that such local activity, in the aggregate, affects national wheat prices -- have courts faced such a breathtaking assertion of raw federal power. Even at the height of the New Deal, Congress did not attempt to force people to buy wheat to support the new national agricultural policy."
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_...
The Obamacare bill is rotten to the core. It should be repealed immediately.
The Supreme Court will find this thing unconstitutional.
So the Sun would have us believe that because Billy's refraining from spending on Day 1 leads to an impact on interstate commerce, and thus Congress has the power to compel Billy to purchase a product? Exactly what is the logical limitation on this power? What legal product or service would be off-limits to mandated consumer spending, on the reasoning that refusing to buy, in the aggregate, affected interstate commerce?
Any reading of the commerce clause which grants the federal government general police powers is fatally flawed.
IF (and notice I said if) the difference between mandatory health insurance coverage and home owner's or auto insurance is choice, in that one must choose to purchase a home or a car before being required to carry insurance on them, then I'm sure those who are in favor of this ruling will happily not carry any health insurance until they choose to get sick. Right?
Mr. Greenspun is the classic liberal who has no problem spending my money. Mr. Greenspun please explain to me how hiring 17,000 new revenue agents has improved healthcare in America?
1. Auto insurance mandate !
Under historical interpretations of the Constitution, Congress can dictate the economic activity of citizens so long as that activity will have profound, large-scale effects on the national economy.
2. Health insurance protects you PLUS all !
** Inaction cost, $9trillion over the next decade, ((Some of CBO analysis : While the costs of the financial bailouts and economic stimulus bills are staggering, they are only a fraction of the coming costs from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that each year Medicaid will expand by 7 percent, Medicare by 6 percent, and Social Security by 5 percent. These programs face a 75-year shortfall of $43 trillion--60 times greater than the gross cost of the $700 billion TARP financial bailout)).
Among the thirty-three industrialized countries in the world, only America has no universal health care. Why do all the leading countries require participation in a universal plan? Because every other country understands that health care is not only a basic right, it is also a necessity, a sane policy protecting the country from plagues and epidemics but also from bankruptcy by providing modern and uniform health care for its people.