Fla. Judge Rules Obamacare Unconstitutional!!!

Wisconsin attorney general: "Health care law is dead"
By Greg Sargent

Okay, so here's the next frontier in the war over the Affordable Care Act: Republican state officials around the country who are hostile to the law may now seize on Judge Vinson's decision yesterday to threaten to stop implementing it -- right now.

The office of Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, one of the states suing to overturn the Affordable Care Act, sends over this statement flatly declaring the law "dead" for his state unless it's revived by a higher court, and asserting that this relieves state government of any and all its responsibiilties to implement the law:

"Judge Vinson declared the health care law void and stated in his decision that a declaratory judgment is the functional equivalent of an injunction. This means that, for Wisconsin, the federal health care law is dead -- unless and until it is revived by an appellate court. Effectively, Wisconsin was relieved of any obligations or duties that were created under terms of the federal health care law. What that means in a practical sense is a discussion I'll have in confidence with Governor Walker, as the State's counsel."

Health Law Ruling Draws Different State Reactions



Topics: Politics, Health Reform, States

Feb 02, 2011

State officials are sorting a legal decision issued Monday by a federal court judge in Florida overturning the health law. Their challenge is to determine how and whether to proceed with their implementation responsibilities. Some, like Florida's governor, appear to favor taking steps to stall its progress.

The Washington Post: State Officials Divided On Meaning Of Judge's Health Care Ruling
A day after a federal judge struck down the government's plan to overhaul the health care system, Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen issued a stern statement: "This means that, for Wisconsin, the federal health care law is dead," and that his state "was relieved of any obligations or duties" to carry out the statute (Goldstein and Aizenman, 2/1).

The New York Times: States Diverge On How To Deal With Health Care Ruling
States took broadly divergent approaches on Tuesday to a federal judge's ruling that invalidated the Obama health care law, while Congressional Republicans used the decision to build momentum for a vote on repealing the act (Sack, Herszenhorn and Pear, 2/1).

LadyJazzer wrote: Funny thing about "Brown vs. Board of Education"... Desegregation was ruled unconstitutional by no less than FIVE (5) separate Federal Appeals Courts, before the five separate desegregation cases were combined into one, and heard before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled it Constitutional, and the rest is history....

Funny thing about our legal system and how it works. It seems that the Supreme Court had ruled in Plessy v Ferguson that separate but equal was constitutional. As a result of that decision inferior courts, such as the 5 Federal Appeals courts you reference, were required to follow that ruling, which they all did, citing Plessy as the basis by which schools could legally be segregated institutions. Only the Supreme Court can overturn a Supreme Court decision, which is exactly what the Warren Court did in Brown v Board of Education.

It wasn't that desegregation was ruled unconstitutional by those inferior courts LJ, quite the opposite in fact. There was nor requirement that schools be segregated, but there was no prohibition against it because of the Plessy decision that any inferior court use to require desegregation of the schools. Even if the judges sitting on the bench in those inferior courts had wished to do so, they couldn't as a matter of law. The Plessy decision said that as long as the conditions were equal, which they were, and whites were as equally prohibited from attending black schools as blacks were from attending white schools, there was no inequality of treatment. Warren and his court had to go outside of the tangible, observable conditions that existed in the segregated schools and into what the justices perceived society to conclude from the segregation to determine that segregated schools were not equal. It was their opinion that society viewed blacks as inferior due to segregation, not that the segregated schools themselves were inferior or provided an inferior education, that led to Plessy being overturned.

No such precedent exists for the Congress mandating the participation of people in private commerce. Never before has Congress attempted to levy a tax against someone as a punitive measure for failing to purchase a private commodity. It is simply without precedence in our history and a gross usurpation of their taxing authority even under the tortured meaning that has been twisted out of the general welfare clause.

I think the judge is most likely correct , My way would be to not allow someone that opts out of medical insurance to ever discharge the medical debt through bankruptcy. Kind of like a tax debt since we pay no matter what. Sign up or accept the risk . That would work for me.

JMC wrote: I think the judge is most likely correct , My way would be to not allow someone that opts out of medical insurance to ever discharge the medical debt through bankruptcy. Kind of like a tax debt since we pay no matter what. Sign up or accept the risk . That would work for me.

Sounds like a good idea to me. You take the risk, no bankruptcy back door for you it will be the "debt that keeps on giving."

PrintSmith wrote:

LadyJazzer wrote: Funny thing about "Brown vs. Board of Education"... Desegregation was ruled unconstitutional by no less than FIVE (5) separate Federal Appeals Courts, before the five separate desegregation cases were combined into one, and heard before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled it Constitutional, and the rest is history....

Funny thing about our legal system and how it works. It seems that the Supreme Court had ruled in Plessy v Ferguson that separate but equal was constitutional. As a result of that decision inferior courts, such as the 5 Federal Appeals courts you reference, were required to follow that ruling, which they all did, citing Plessy as the basis by which schools could legally be segregated institutions. Only the Supreme Court can overturn a Supreme Court decision, which is exactly what the Warren Court did in Brown v Board of Education.

It wasn't that desegregation was ruled unconstitutional by those inferior courts LJ, quite the opposite in fact. There was nor requirement that schools be segregated, but there was no prohibition against it because of the Plessy decision that any inferior court use to require desegregation of the schools. Even if the judges sitting on the bench in those inferior courts had wished to do so, they couldn't as a matter of law. The Plessy decision said that as long as the conditions were equal, which they were, and whites were as equally prohibited from attending black schools as blacks were from attending white schools, there was no inequality of treatment. Warren and his court had to go outside of the tangible, observable conditions that existed in the segregated schools and into what the justices perceived society to conclude from the segregation to determine that segregated schools were not equal. It was their opinion that society viewed blacks as inferior due to segregation, not that the segregated schools themselves were inferior or provided an inferior education, that led to Plessy being overturned.

No such precedent exists for the Congress mandating the participation of people in private commerce. Never before has Congress attempted to levy a tax against someone as a punitive measure for failing to purchase a private commodity. It is simply without precedence in our history and a gross usurpation of their taxing authority even under the tortured meaning that has been twisted out of the general welfare clause.

I could care less about your comparative anatomy of the two cases... That wasn't my point, and you are welcome to yours. The point was that celebrating the fact that two judges, out of four, have found in your favor doesn't really mean a whole lot because there is precedent that as many as five courts found something to be one way, and the SCOTUS overturned it. Period... You can rail all you want about "liberal court vs. conservative court"... It will be decided by the SCOTUS in the long run, and to my mind there is ample precedent for a ruling that the law is Constitutional. You think otherwise. Fine... All I've said at this point is "We'll see..." Two of four courts have found it Constitutional so far, and two have not. At this point, I'll settle for that.

JMC wrote: I think the judge is most likely correct , My way would be to not allow someone that opts out of medical insurance to ever discharge the medical debt through bankruptcy. Kind of like a tax debt since we pay no matter what. Sign up or accept the risk . That would work for me.

Why stop at health care costs JMC, why not also include mortgage debt and credit cards as well? And how are you going to address treating medical costs in a different manner in a bankruptcy court based upon whether the person seeking relief had insurance or didn't have insurance? You had insurance so your debt is discharged, but mine isn't because I didn't have insurance? In both cases the debt would have been incurred in the knowledge that it likely couldn't be paid back, so I can't see where such a law would meet the necessary standard of equal protection under the law.

When I was younger, I didn't carry health insurance. When I went to the doctor I paid cash on the barrel, same for prescriptions. When I sliced open my hand, I paid for the stitches out of pocket. Insurance is for major expenses, not everyday expenses. The biggest cause of the rise in health care costs and health insurance costs is that the health insurance started covering the little costs in addition to the major ones. To use a car insurance analogy, it went from covering an accident where your car was significantly damaged to paying for a portion of every tank of gas put into the car, every oil change, every new set of tires, every windshield and every other item of routine maintenance.

Reagan Solicitor General: 'I Am Quite Sure That The Health Care Mandate Is Constitutional' (VIDEO)

Former Reagan Solicitor General Charles Fried delivered testimony during a Senate hearing on the "The Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act," expressing, in no uncertain terms, his personal assessment that he is "quite sure that the health care mandate is constitutional."

The mandate is a rule--more accurately, "part of a system of rules by which commerce is to be governed," to quote Chief Justice Marshall. And if that weren't enough for you--though it is enough for me--you go back to Marshall in 1819, in McCulloch v. Maryland, where he said "the powers given to the government imply the ordinary means of execution. The government which has the right to do an act"--surely, to regulate health insurance--"and has imposed on it the duty of performing that act, must, according to the dictates of reason, be allowed to select the means." And that is the Necessary and Proper Clause. [...]

I think that one thing about Judge Vinson's opinion, where he said that if we strike down the mandate everything else goes, shows as well as anything could that the mandate is necessary to the accomplishment of the regulation of health insurance.

While Fried announced at the onset of the hearing that he had come to the meeting as a non-partisan observer who had some serious concerns about many other aspects of the bill, it's also worth noting that he voted for Barack Obama in 2008, despite being an avid supporter of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). At the time, he claimed that McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as vice president had forced his decision.

rofllol


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/0 ... 17641.html

LadyJazzer wrote: I could care less about your comparative anatomy of the two cases... That wasn't my point, and you are welcome to yours. The point was that celebrating the fact that two judges, out of four, have found in your favor doesn't really mean a whole lot because there is precedent that as many as five courts found something to be one way, and the SCOTUS overturned it. Period... You can rail all you want about "liberal court vs. conservative court"... It will be decided by the SCOTUS in the long run, and to my mind there is ample precedent for a ruling that the law is Constitutional. You think otherwise. Fine... All I've said at this point is "We'll see..." Two of four courts have found it Constitutional so far, and two have not. At this point, I'll settle for that.

And my point was that your reasoning was faulty because the 5 courts had ruled as they had because of the prior SCOTUS ruling on the matter and they were obligated to uphold that previous ruling and that their rulings had absolutely no bearing on how they might have ruled absent that previous ruling by SCOTUS on the very matter of separate but equal that SCOTUS had already addressed in their decision in the Plessy case.

That 5 lower courts had upheld a previous ruling made by SCOTUS before the Warren Court overturned the previous decision of another SCOTUS means nothing in regards to the current situation where 2 courts have upheld and 2 courts overturned a completely unprecedented piece of legislation enacted by the federal government. There are no precedents established to address the national Congress requiring citizens to purchase a commodity or face a financial penalty for failing to do so because no other Congress has done it in the history of the nation. Not even once before has such a thing been tried.

I'm looking forward to SCOTUS getting the case. I'm looking forward to Congress being told that their authority over the nation is indeed a limited one and that they overstepped that authority here. I'm looking forward to SCOTUS striking it down so that there is a precedence established and we won't ever have to worry about another Congress even coming close to doing anything like this ever again.

PS , you have a piss ant point. If you stick the taxpayers ,as opposed to the businesses, then keep the debt. Credit card companies make the decision to offer credit they own it. Health care is different,we will not allow people to die over health care policy. It is very different if you don't see this you are not as smart as I thought you were.

PrintSmith wrote: There are no precedents established to address the national Congress requiring citizens to purchase a commodity or face a financial penalty for failing to do so.....

MediCare
Social Security

With some exceptions for Federal workers, Postal Employees, (who self-insure through their own plans), Amish, (who have a waiver because they have agreed not to claim it), we ALL pay into it or face a financial penalty.