Judge: Suit over health overhaul can go to trial

[Akoto]

Source: Associated Press

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) -- Crucial pieces of a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's health care overhaul can go to trial, with a judge ruling Thursday he wants to hear more arguments over whether it's constitutional to force citizens to buy health insurance.

In a written ruling, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson said it also needs to be decided whether it's constitutional to penalize people who do not buy insurance with taxes and to require states to expand their Medicaid programs. Another federal judge in Michigan threw out a similar lawsuit last week.

Vinson set a hearing for Dec. 16. The lawsuits will likely wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In his 65-page ruling, Vinson largely agreed with the 20 states and the National Federation of Independent Business, saying Congress was intentionally unclear when it created penalties in the legislation. The states have argued that Congress is overstepping its constitutional authority by penalizing people for not doing something - not buying health insurance.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_HEALTH_OVERHAUL_LAWSUIT?SITE=CACRU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Hardrada]

1. Good for him. Bad bill anyway.

[awoke_in_2003]

2. Hate to say it...

but it is a piece of shit bill. A mandate to buy a product from predatory companies with NO, NONE, ZERO, NADA regulation on cost- sounds like a big shit sandwich to me. The Dutch have their mandates, but their insurance companies are regulated.

[No Elephants]

5. The Dutch don't have our Constitution, either--and we are talking a Constitutional challenge.

[awoke_in_2003]

8. I am trying to see what that has to do...

with the price of tea in Bangkok. I brought up the fact that I can understand why someone might want to challenge OUR law, and the fact that a mandate wouldn't be such a bad thing if we had Dutch-style regulations built into ours. I wasn't trying to say that the Dutch should challenge THEIR law (or even if they could that they would want to).

[No Elephants]

3. Did AP omit the crucial constitutional point, or did the judges? Gosh, I hope it was AP.

"whether it's constitutional to force citizens to buy health insurance."

Not the crucial constitutional point. OF COURSE government can force you to pay for stuff. Hel-l00000.


The crucial constitutional point is whether it's constitutional to penalize citizens who don't buy health insurance from private sources--and without even offering a public option..


For example, if you receive OASDI disability, you get Medicare hospitalization coverage free (although you are free to get supplementary inpatient coverage--or not--as you wish). For outpatient services, though, you must EITHER pay for Medicare coverage OR prove you have equivalent private coverage. Mandate, but with a low cost public option (too low, some might say).

Public option is the difference between the OASDI mandate and the hcr mandate--and the crucial constitutional issue in a constitutional challenge to hcr's mandate.

Again, I hope it was AP that omitted the crucial constitutional issue (maybe deliberately?) and not any judge.

[boppers]

4. Welcome to DU!

Tagging uses square brackets here, not curly brackets, or
"gt lt" brackets.

[No Elephants]

6. You caught two bracket typos. Must be a proud moment.

I freely admit to being a lousy typist (and needing more coffee right now). So, I just try hard not to post crap as though it were fact.

[boppers]

7. I spent several years doing code QA for a living.

Nothing personal, I'm used to reading thousands of lines of code (every day) looking for a single wrong bracket.

In that case, there was a mish-mash of errors.