Just mentioned on Rush — great news!
Regardless of what happens, it will end up at the SCOTUS and it will all eventually depend on ONE MAN and which side of the bed he wakes up in (Justice Kennedy).
The best medical system the globe has to offer may yet be saved.
Striking down the individual mandate still leaves a terrible, tyrannical law.
Because Obamacare authorizes the bureaucrats to dictate the terms and benefits of all health insurance policies that may be offered to the public, your choice is essentially to go without health insurance entirely (which the 11th Circuit now says you can do) or buy a policy that is a government-designed policy.
The government-designed policy allows the government to decide which treatments may be paid for and which may not. Old white person who lived your life responsibly and conservatively? No treatments for you, too expensive. Young homosexual who needs expensive AIDS drugs because they had thousands of anonymous sexual encounters in bathhouses? Yes, this gets paid because that is a government-approved victim group with higher status.
Since Congress did not include a severability clause and it is impossible to say how Congress would have structured the law if it could not include the individual mandate, the entire law should have been struck down.
We first conclude that the Act’s Medicaid expansion is constitutional.
Existing Supreme Court precedent does not establish that Congress’s inducements
are unconstitutionally coercive, especially when the federal government will bear
nearly all the costs of the program’s amplified enrollments.
Next, the individual mandate was enacted as a regulatory penalty, not a
revenue-raising tax, and cannot be sustained as an exercise of Congress’s power
under the Taxing and Spending Clause. The mandate is denominated as a penalty in
the Act itself, and the legislative history and relevant case law confirm this reading
of its function.
Further, the individual mandate exceeds Congress’s enumerated commerce
power and is unconstitutional. This economic mandate represents a wholly novel
and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority: the ability to
compel Americans to purchase an expensive health insurance product they have
elected not to buy, and to make them re-purchase that insurance product every
month for their entire lives. We have not found any generally applicable, judicially
enforceable limiting principle that would permit us to uphold the mandate without
obliterating the boundaries inherent in the system of enumerated congressional
powers. “Uniqueness” is not a constitutional principle in any antecedent Supreme
Court decision. The individual mandate also finds no refuge in the aggregation doctrine, for decisions to abstain from the purchase of a product or service,
whatever their cumulative effect, lack a sufficient nexus to commerce.145
The individual mandate, however, can be severed from the remainder of the
Act’s myriad reforms. The presumption of severability is rooted in notions of
judicial restraint and respect for the separation of powers in our constitutional
system. The Act’s other provisions remain legally operative after the mandate’s
excision, and the high burden needed under Supreme Court precedent to rebut the
presumption of severability has not been met.
Accordingly, we affirm in part and reverse in part the judgment of the district
court.
AFFIRMED in part and REVERSED in part.
145Our respected dissenting colleague says that the majority: (1) “has ignored the broad
power of Congress”; (2) “has ignored the Supreme Court’s expansive reading of the Commerce
Clause”; (3) “presume[s] to sit as a superlegislature”; (4) “misapprehends the role of a reviewing
court”; and (5) ignores that “as nonelected judicial officers, we are not afforded the opportunity
to rewrite statutes we don’t like.” See Dissenting Op. at 208–209, 243. We do not respond to
these contentions, especially given (1) our extensive and exceedingly careful review of the Act,
Supreme Court precedent, and the parties’ arguments, and (2) our holding that the Act, despite
significant challenges to this massive and sweeping federal regulation and spending, falls within
the ambit and prerogative of Congress’s broad commerce power, except for one section, §
5000A. We do, however, refuse to abdicate our constitutional duty when Congress has acted
beyond its enumerated Commerce Clause power in mandating that Americans, from cradle to
grave, purchase an insurance product from a private company.
AFFIRMED in part and REVERSED in part.
Repeal ObamaCommieCare!!
Most people don't realize that beginning in 2012, next year, the premiums we pay for health insurance will no longer be considered pre-tax income. It is a tax hike on everyone.
If I am wrong about this, please prove me wrong. (Please!)
This made my day! While it doesn’t kill it entirely it chops off the head. Without funding the rest will fall...
Great news but this should get fast tracked to SCOTUS and be once and for all declared unconstitutional now!
Really? I thought that the way Congress enacted Obamacare had a legal flaw in it that made it "all or nothing." This was a consequence of them ramming it through so quickly because they didn't want the public to know what was in it.
Anyone else know what I am talking about or heard this?
When you shirk the Constitution as much as this Hussein, it’s going to catch up with you sooner or later.
Much chance the entire Appeals court will overide the 3 judge panel?
“a blow to the White House”
Is this a thread from 1998? }:-)
Seriously though, that is good news.
I thought Obamacare didn’t contain a severability clause, thus if one part is ruled unconstitutional, the entire law is unconstitutional.
Isn’t it about time we have an adult conversation about this topic?
I am not in favor of an individual mandate or other mechanism to compel people to pay for health insurance. This idea is antithesis to individual freedom.
At the same time, as long as we insist the medical delivery system provide service to anyone in need, regardless of the ability or willingness to pay, then we have a conundrum.
A reasonable, empathetic society needs to decide, either pay for those who are unwilling/unable to pay for health care or refuse to provide service unless you can prove ability to pay, insurance or otherwise. You cannot have it both ways. Where we are now, with lots of people using but not paying (or under paying) into the system, leads to bankruptcy of the system. Our medical delivery system is close to insolvency now, the cost of insurance and medical care is near unaffordable for many.
Obamacare is not a good approach, difficult decisions must be made … and soon.
schu
The real fun is going to begin if SCOTUS agrees and kills the mandate. All of those big insurance companies who signed on to Obamacare, drooling over the prospect of millions of new customers at gunpoint, are gonna realize they are on the hook for the rest of this crap sandwich without the additional clientele.
They are gonna do a 180 and start working for repeal faster than you can say Unfunded Mandate.