Florida Judge Tosses Out Obamacare

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright February 1, 2011
All Rights Reserved.                                

             Calling Obamacare unconstitutional, Pensacola, Florida U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson, a 1983 Reagan administration appointee, said Congress overreached when approving Obamacare.  In a case of the pot calling the kettle black, Vinson wrote that Congress overstepped its authority mandating health insurance for all Americans.  Conservatives like to rant about “judicial activism” but only when it comes to liberal judges ruling against conservative causes.  Vinson struck down Obamacare’s mandate provision, agreeing with rulings in 26 other states.  Calling Vinson’s ruling “a plain case of judicial overreaching,” the White House promised to appeal.  Vinson, and other conservative judges, have no problem with the mandatory Medicae tax, or, for that matter, the payroll deduction for Social Security.  Only mandates for able-bodied citizens under 65 bother Vinson.

            Echoing an earlier Virginia District Court ruling that struck down the insurance requirement, Vinson went further invalidating the law’s Medicare discounts to seniors and provisions extending coverage to dependents up to 26-years-of-age.  Vinson objected under the Commerce clause, citing the federal government’s lack of authority to impose mandates.  Vinson ruled that the Commerce Clause prohibits lawmakers from penalizing citizens through the Internal Revenue Service for failing to buy insurance.  “Congress could require that people buy and consume broccoli at regular intervals,” wrote Vinson, failing to acknowledge that the federal tax code already requires mandatory taxes for Medicare and Social Security.  Proponents of Obamacare see the mandates as needed to create the massive insurance pool needed to spread more risk and bring down premiums.

            Vinson’s broccoli analogy makes a mockery of federal mandates designed to cover taxpayers with a modicum of government protection.  Conservative voices objected to mandated provisions of the 1936 Social Security Act and repeated the same complaints when President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law in 1965.  Whatever one eats has little to do with health insurance or holding down health care costs.  White House spokeswoman Stephanie Cutler points out that Obamacare attempts to shift the current unfounded liability in health care costs to private insurers.  Insurance companies don’t like ending the provision excluding pre-existing conditions from health coverage.  Current insurance industry practices insure anyone, no matter how sick, if they’re part of group plans.  Individuals with preexisting conditions are either rated up or excluded from coverage altogether.

            Insurance industry objections stem from the false belief that ending the distinction between group and individual insurance adds to the costs because you add sick people to the ranks of the insured.  What the insurance industry doesn’t get under Obamacare is what happens when you add 30 million subscribers to the ranks of the insured.  Creating a health care boom only adds to the industry’s bottom line, expanding the need for more doctors, nurses, medical technicians, paraprofessionals, hospitals, clinics, laboratories, etc., all bringing premiums down despite using more benefits.  Among the broad age group of zero-to-65, most don’t need to use health insurance until more advanced years.  Insurance industry actuaries know that seniors use heath benefits far more that younger, healthier subscribers.  Insuring more individuals increases the risk pool and brings down premium prices.

               Vinson’s ruling revealed his Tea Party roots, going over the deep end with Tea Party analogies.  “It’s difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all teas sold in America would have set out to create a government with the powers to force people to buy tea in the first place,” turning the argument on its head.  There’s no British crown collecting tax on tea only a government tired of paying, without reimbursement, for the health care costs of the uninsured.  Vinson knows that there’s plenty of federal government of requiring payment for federal mandates like Medicare and Social Security.  Newly minted House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) jumped on Vinson’s ruling as proof the House did the right thing repealing Obamacare Jan. 19.

            Conservatives in Congress and on the airwaves have no problem with Vinson’s right wing judicial activism.  He knows Obamacare is nothing more that an attempt to standardize and provide health coverage to the disgraceful numbers of U.S. citizens currently uninsured.  It attempts to correct decades-old discrimination against self-employed individuals unable to benefit from group insurance, where no proof of insurability is needed no matter how sick the employee. Obamacare, like Medicare, attempts to provide minimum standards of health coverage, including types of coverage, dollar amounts, deductibles, co-pays and waiting periods.  Conservatives know that today’s runaway health insurance costs is a punitive ax on the consumers that harms the U.S. economy.  Lowering health care costs puts more cash in consumers’ pockets to stimulate the consumer spending.  

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

©1999-2005 Discobolos Consulting Services, Inc.
(310) 204-8300
All Rights Reserved.