Federal Judge Robert Vinson declared the entirety of ObamaCare to be void. Judge Vinson said that it is unconstitutional for the Federal government to force individuals to purchase health care insurance.
It is an act of tyranny for a government to mandate people to make specific purchases for themselves and for their families. It is unjust and evil to force poor people to purchase health insurance that has been made extremely expensive by the illogical and dictatorial actions of a repressive government.
On October 14, 2010, U.S. District Judge Robert Vinson ruled that the case brought originally by 20 state Attorney Generals could go forward. Judge Vinson ruled that the Commerce Clause of The Constitution of the United States gives no authority to Congress or the President to mandate the purchase of health insurance.
http://www.healthcarebs.com/2010/10/14/federal-judge-rules-that-anti-obamacare-suit-can-go-forward/
At this stage in the litigation, this is not even a close call. . . This case law is instructive, but ultimately inconclusive because the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause have never been applied in such a manner before. The power that the individual mandate seeks to harness is simply without prior precedent.
Judge Vinson differentiated between the ability to mandate the purchase of certain automobile liability insurance and preventing people from engaging in nonactivity, such as the decision to not purchase health insurance.
[In the latter] case we are dealing with something very different. The individual mandate applies across the board. People have no choice and there is no way to avoid it. Those who fall under the individual mandate either comply with it, or they are penalized. It is not based on an activity that they make the choice to undertake. Rather, it is based solely on citizenship and on being alive.
Judge Vinson also criticized the Obama Administration for claiming ObamaCare was not mandating a tax and then claiming the opposite in the defense of this legal case.
Congress should not be permitted to secure and cast politically difficult votes on controversial legislation by deliberately calling something one thing, after which the defenders of that legislation take an ‘Alice-in-Wonderland’ tack and argue in court that Congress really meant something else entirely …
Judge Vinson clarified that the insurance mandate inherent in ObamaCare was indeed not a tax.
Congress did not intend to impose a tax when it imposed the penalty. To hold otherwise would require me to look beyond the plain words of the statute. I would have to ignore that Congress: (i) specifically changed the term in previous incarnations of the statute from “tax” to “penalty;” (ii) used the term “tax” in describing the several other exactions provided for in the Act; (iii) specifically relied on and identified its Commerce Clause power and not its taxing power; (iv) eliminated traditional IRS enforcement methods for the failure to pay the “tax;” and (v) failed to identify in the legislation any revenue that would be raised from it, notwithstanding that at least seventeen other revenue-generating provisions were specifically so identified.
On Monday January 31, 2011, Judge Robert Vinson declared that the “mandate is unconstitutional” and the entirely of ObamaCare is “void”. Judge Vinson sided with the 26 states that had sued to block the implementation of ObamaCare.
The Los
Angeles Times considered Judge Vinson’s ruling so very important that it
published his decision in its entirety.
The following from the CONCLUSION of Judge Vinson’s SUMMARY JUDGEMENT are
of interest.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/01/obamacare-unconstitutional-federal-judge-roger-vinson-florida-1.html
The existing problems in our national health care system are recognized by everyone in this case. There is widespread sentiment for positive improvements that will reduce costs, improve the quality of care, and expand availability in a way
that the nation can afford. This is obviously a very difficult task. 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.
“Again, this case is not about whether the Act is wise or unwise legislation. It is about the Constitutional role of the federal government.
“For the reasons stated, I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate. That is not to say, of course, that Congress is without power to address the problems and
inequities in our health care system. The health care market is more than one sixth of the national economy, and without doubt Congress has the power to reform and regulate this market. That has not been disputed in this case. The principal dispute has been about how Congress chose to exercise that power here.30
“Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void.
“This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications. At a time when there is virtually unanimous agreement that health care reform is needed in this country, it is hard to invalidate and strike down a statute titled “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” As Judge Luttig wrote for an en banc Fourth Circuit in 30 On this point, it should be emphasized that while the individual mandate was clearly “necessary and essential” to the Act as drafted, it is not “necessary and essential” to health care reform in general. It is undisputed that there are various other (Constitutional) ways to accomplish what Congress wanted to do.
“Indeed, I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that “if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house.”
Our Supreme Court will ultimately decide this case. The Court will quite possibly hear this case in an expedited manner.
Our Supreme Court will decide if our Federal government can forcibly cause a person to spend money on a product they do not wish to purchase, not allow a person to purchase a more logical and much less expensive competitive product, mandate how one shall receive the services of the product, diminish the quality of the services rendered by the product with excessive rules and regulations, and ultimately ration and even deny the services of the product to the purchaser.
What is at stake here is whether or not our Federal government can choose to govern We the People in a tyrannical manner.
http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/may/2011-02-01/stopping-obamacare-tyranny-0
