If you thought President Obama’s signature Health Care Reform bill was safely the law of the land, guess again. A federal judge and a sea of his fellow conservative opponents are pulling out all stops to make the legislation which has come to be known as “ObamaCare” dead on arrival.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson of Florida ruled that the new health care insurance mandate is unconstitutional, arguing that the government does not have the legal right to force citizens to purchase health care if they don’t want it. Incidentally, two other federal courts previously ruled the law and its mandate were permissible. But now, Judge Vinson’s ruling sets the stage for an almost certain appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Vinson, an appointee of President Reagan, hinted for months that he would back the challenge to the law filed by Florida’s Republican attorney general and joined by 25 other states. And in his ruling Monday, he said he had no choice but to invalidate the law.
“The existing problems in our national health care system are recognized by everyone in this case,” Vinson wrote in the 78-page ruling. “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. … I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate.”
Vinson’s decision comes only 6 weeks after a similar ruling in December by U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson of Virginia, also a Republican, who backed a lawsuit by that state’s attorney general.
The White House called yesterday’s ruling an overreach by the judge and a game of collusive politics with congressional Republicans that hasn’t a chance to succeed. Stay tuned!
