Latest Health-Care Ruling a Double Win for Obama

[jefferson_dem]

Latest Health-Care Ruling a Double Win for Obama
By Andrew Cohen
Sep 9 2011, 2:10 PM ET8

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state of Virgina has no case to sue the government over federal heath care reform



The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave a double victory Thursday to the White House, the Justice Department, and other supporters of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Actually, you could call it a double-double.

Not only did the three-judge panel of federal judges dismiss two separate challenges to the new health-care law. But it did so on jurisdictional grounds, which means the justices of the United States Supreme Court now may have other viable legal options available to them next year should they wish to avoid resolving this battle on the merits. And judges typically love to resolve cases without getting to the merits if they can get away with it.

In Virginia v. Sebelius, a unanimous panel declared that Virginia had no standing to sue for what state lawyers claimed was a "sovereign injury" caused by the federal health care law. Virginia couldn't get around federal jurisdictional rules, the 4th Circuit ruled, just because the state had enacted its own measure, the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act. The state law -- which states that "o resident of this Commonwealth... shall be required to obtain or maintain a policy of individual insurance coverage" -- was signed into law one day after President Barack Obama signed into law the federal health measure.

Noting the timing and purpose of Virginia's statute, the 4th Circuit essentially called out the Commonwealth for its blatant attempt to manipulate its way into federal court. Here's how Judge Diana Gribbon Motz put it (and I'm citing the kinder passages):

<SNIP>

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/09/latest-health-care-ruling-a-double-win-for-obama/244768/#.TmtUICbeDZc.twitter

[hansberrym]

1. The Re-mancipation Proclamations: Hear yee, hear yee

The requirement regulates activity that is commercial and economic in nature: economic and financial decisions about how and when health care is paid for, and when health insurance is purchased. H.R. 3590 Subtitle F, sec. 1501 B


Economic Decision-Making Is an Activity Subject to Congress’s Commerce Clause Power
Mead v. Holder, Judge G.Kessler




Did we vote for Change or Chains?

[thereismore]

2. Yes, that commerce clause. Love it or hate it, it's the law. nt

[jefferson_dem]

3. So you've saddled up with the loopy teabagger/republican talking points?

Healthcare reform = Slavery.

However, it is nice to see that you have referenced the controlling passage in the US Constitution that authorizes the government to provide for the "General Welfare" via the Commerce Clause.

[hansberrym]

4. Which passage allows the government to regulate a person's economic decisions? n/t

[jefferson_dem]

5. The Commerce Clause has done this since 1819.

In the McCulloch v. Maryland case.

The legal decision here is pretty clear - http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/111057.P.pdf

Of course, "states rights" advocates have fought against such application ever since...including their efforts to repeal legislation relating to civil rights, child labor, and now health care reform. At any rate, the Court will see that the individual mandate amounts to an excise tax, which are routinely levied by government.

[hansberrym]

6. If the "Commerce" Clause empowers the regulation of "Economic" decisions

must it not, a fortiori, empower the regulation of Commercial decisions?

The idea that Congress can regulate economic decisions under the CC is madness. It necessarily leads to the conclusion that Commercial decisions also fall under Congress's power to "regulate".

Can Congress compel a person to grow wheat and sell it to the AAA board(Wickard)? No!
Can Congress compel a person to grow cotton and sell it to the AAA board(Rodgers)? Hell no!


It is often remarked that most repubs want to bring us back to the 1950s, but apparently a few Dems want to bring us back to 1850!