Health care reform act ruled unconstitutional by Fla. judge

PENSACOLA, Fla. – President Barack Obama lost the second of four court challenges to his health care law as a federal judge in Florida ruled that the measure went beyond the power of Congress to regulate commerce.
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson in Pensacola declared the entire law invalid today in a 78-page opinion in a suit brought by 26 states. He said a provision requiring Americans over age 18 to obtain insurance coverage violated the U.S Constitution. The U.S. Justice Department said it will appeal.
Florida sued on behalf of 13 states on March 23, the day Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, legislation intended to provide the U.S. with almost universal health care coverage. Seven states joined the suit last year (former Gov. Donald L. Carcieri joined, but Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch did not commit the state of Rhode Island to the challenge), and six this year. Virginia sued separately on March 23 and Oklahoma filed its own suit on Jan. 21.
“Regardless of how laudable its attempts may have been to accomplish these goals in passing the act, Congress must operate within the bounds established by the Constitution,” Vinson, 70, wrote. “This case is not about whether the act is wise or unwise legislation. It is about the constitutional role of the federal government.” He declined to issue an order blocking enforcement of the law.
The ruling by Vinson, who was named to the federal bench in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan, would be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta. An appeals court in Richmond, Va., is already slated in May to hear challenges to two conflicting lower-court rulings in that state, one upholding the legislation, the other invalidating part of it.
‘Strongly disagree’
“We strongly disagree with the court’s ruling today and continue to believe – as other federal courts have found – that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional,” Tracy Schmaler, U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement. “There is clear and well-established legal precedent that Congress acted within its constitutional authority in passing this law.”
The U.S. Supreme Court may ultimately be asked to consider the issue. Of the four courts that have ruled on the health care act, two found that Congress exceeded its authority, while two didn’t. Vinson is the first to invalidate the entire act.
“The judge has confirmed what many of us knew from the start: Obamacare is an unprecedented and unconstitutional infringement on the liberty of the American people,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, said in a statement.
Pilot projects
The 955-page law bars insurers from denying coverage to people who are sick and from imposing lifetime limits on costs. It also includes pilot projects to test ideas like incentives for better results and bundled payments to medical teams for patient care.
In an Oct. 14 decision letting the case proceed, Vinson narrowed the issues to whether the act exceeded the constitutional powers of Congress by requiring all Americans over the age of 18 to obtain coverage and expanding eligibility for Medicaid, the federal-state program offering care for the indigent.
The individual mandate combined with expansion of Medicaid and employer-based coverage would extend health coverage to 32 million more people by 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Mandatory coverage, which the United States has called the linchpin of the plan, would start in 2014.
Virginia case
U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in Richmond, ruling in Virginia’s case on Dec. 13, held the mandate unconstitutional. The judge said the rest of the act could stand.
The government lacks the authority to “compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market,” wrote Hudson, who was named to the bench by President George W. Bush.
The Obama administration is appealing that decision.
Two U.S. judges have upheld the measure. U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh in Detroit found in the administration’s favor in a lawsuit brought by the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center.
U.S. District Judge Norman Moon in Lynchburg, Va., issued a similar decision in a case filed by Liberty University.
In Washington, D.C., the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 19 voted 245-189 to repeal the act.
‘Affirms the view’
“Today’s decision affirms the view, held by most of the states and a majority of the American people, that the federal government should not be in the business of forcing you to buy health insurance and punishing you if you don’t,” U.S. Rep. John Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives, said in a statement.
While acknowledging Congress’s power to regulate activities that “substantially” affect interstate commerce, Vinson on Dec. 16 questioned both sides on whether that could be expanded to cover inactivity.
“Inactivity cannot be regulated under the Commerce Clause,” David B. Rivkin, a lawyer for the states, argued, saying Supreme Court law was “perfectly consistent ” on the question.
Ian Gershengorn, a Justice Department attorney, told the judge that those who can’t, or won’t, buy health insurance are making an economic decision to pay later or shift the cost. “The uninsured are not inactive,” he said.
Different market
The $2.5 trillion national health care market is unlike the market for anything else, Gershengorn said.
“If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain, for it would be difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power, and we would have a Constitution in name only,” Vinson wrote today.
Judges in the cases decided in favor of the Obama administration, Steeh in Detroit and Moon in Lynchburg, were appointees of President Bill Clinton.
Joining Florida in the suit were Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.