Posted on 08/12/2011 11:07:52 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that the individual mandate that is the lifeblood of ObamaCare is unconstitutional. Without this mandate, which requires that nearly all Americans buy health insurance, the entire multi-trillion enterprise essentially collapses of its own weight. As Jazz writes: The whole reason the mandate’s there in the first place is so that insurers have a big new pool of premiums flowing in to help offset the costs they’ll incur from now having to cover people with preexisting conditions, etc. If that pool disappears, the whole arrangement becomes financially unstable. Stripped of the mandate, Congress would either have to scale back the other parts of the law so that it can function independently or scrap the law altogether and start over.
The suit was brought by 26 states, nearly all of them led by Republican governors and attorneys general. The Department of Justice is expected to appeal.
The decision, which was 2 to 1 in favor of striking down the individual mandate, marks the first in which a judge appointed by a Democrat has so voted. Judge Frank Hull, who was nominated by former President Bill Clinton, joined Chief Judge Joel Dubina, who was appointed by George H.W. Bush, to constitute the majority opinion.
Writing for the majority, Judge Dubina opined: [T]he individual mandate contained in the Act exceeds Congress’s enumerated commerce power. This conclusion is limited in scope. The power that Congress has wielded via the Commerce Clause for the life of this country remains undiminished. Congress may regulate commercial actors. It may forbid certain commercial activity. It may enact hundreds of new laws and federally-funded programs, as it has elected to do in this massive 975- page Act. But what Congress cannot do under the Commerce Clause is mandate that individuals enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die.
It cannot be denied that the individual mandate is an unprecedented exercise of congressional power. As the CBO observed, Congress ‘has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.’ CBO MANDATE MEMO, supra p.115, at 1. Never before has Congress sought to regulate commerce by compelling non-market participants to enter into commerce so that Congress may regulate them. The statutory language of the mandate is not tied to health care consumption—past, present, or in the future.
Rather, the mandate is to buy insurance now and forever. The individual mandate does not wait for market entry.
Some on the left are seeking to make lemonade out of the lemons embodied in this ruling by pointing to a facet of the ruling that allows severability of the individual mandate from the rest of the law. In other words, the law could remain intact except for the requirement that individuals buy health insurance. But as stated earlier, that requirement is the sole pneumatic tube through which cash was to flow into the implementation of the law. Without it, ObamaCare is dead on arrival.
Obama is simply going to defy the court. That is a given.
The question is; will he be allowed to get away with it?
Severability or not, the individual mandate is the heart of ObamaCare. Without it, ObamaCare is non-viable. It would be like having a draft for the Army that was optional.
NO.
These A holes claim the rest of this balderdash is severable and intact.
This despite “The Fact” there is no severabikity clause in this “for crap” legislation.
It would be Kool if Jim Thompson would proof read my musings before I post for grammar and spelling.
There should be an App for that.
The whole thing rests with Anthony Kennedy in the end.
Probably so. The end result will be the same. Either there are limits to what Congress can demand, or their are not. If the Supreme Court finds the individual mandate legal, then there are no limits, and the Republic is dead.
I thought that there was a lot in the news at the time of this bill’s passing that there was no severability clause and that the bill was either to be struck down on whole or that the bill would be upheld on whole.
Not really:
- The mandate was the conduit to ensure funds flowed into Obamacare.
- The ruling allowed severability of the mandate clause from the rest of the package.
Put those two together, and add a generous dash of arrogance of power, and the result is . . .
A program funded by more deficit spending which will be continually expanded by rulings such as the recent on regarding women's birth control.
This staggering zombie needs two to the core, one to the head, and a big wooden stake for good measure.
Remember -- they had to pass it so we could find out what was in it. I am confident there will be more surprises peeled away as time passes. Unless the entire thing is put out of our misery.
I almost wonder if they even care about viability. They may just want to blow up the current system and then put the pieces back together as they see fit.
Given that this is real life, which is becoming literally impossible to satire, instead of a novel, which has to be at least somewhat realistic, I honestly don't know. It seems not just stupid but ... meta-stupid, to think that they could carry on with ObamaCare once it's head has been blown off by the Supreme Court.
My most fervent wish is that one day, a Supreme Court declares all official acts of one Barack Obama null and void.
Yeah, I hear what you’re saying...surely the Obama presidency isn’t a pure kamikaze mission. Surely there’s enough demand for realism that they couldn’t just carry on. Hard to say at 4am.
Exactly!
The individual mandate is the key factor that will kill Obamacare.
If many people were to have a spine they already know he failed to qualify because he is NOT a natural born citizen, thus according to the Constitution everything he signed cannot be legally enforced.
And there is no telling which way this mush head will go on this.
I don't see how he can force anyone to buy in. I had no intention of getting involved in the first place, but now that it is declared unconstitutional, well, suck an egg, Obozo.
The fact is the ONLY limit on what Congress can demand is whatever abitrary limit the SCOTUS puts on it. This is true no matter how they decide on Obamacare.
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