Print“The right to be free from federal regulation is not absolute, and yields to the imperative that Congress be free to forge national solutions to national problems.”
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that President Obama’s healthcare legislation, which requires almost all Americans to have medical insurance by 2014, is constitutional. The D.C. circuit appellate court was the fourth to rule on the constitutionality of the measure and the third to reject a challenge to the insurance mandate.
A three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a 2-1 vote upholding the lower court’s ruling that found Congress did not overstep the Constitution in requiring people to have insurance or pay a penalty in their taxes.
The lawsuit was filed by the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal group founded by evangelist Pat Robertson. The key issue of the suit was whether the individual mandate, which enforces a payment penalty on individuals who choose to forgo health insurance, was an improper exercise of federal authority.
Judge Laurence Silberman, who authored the majority opinion, wrote that although the individual mandate may be an encroachment of individual liberty and seem intrusive, it is within Congress’ authority to do so. “The right to be free from federal regulation is not absolute, and yields to the imperative that Congress be free to forge national solutions to national problems.”
Silberman was joined by Judge Harry Edwards in voting in favor of upholding the healthcare law while Judge Brett Kavanaugh broke with the other two judges because he believed that because the penalty charged for not having insurance is effectively a tax, the court did not have jurisdiction to decide the case.
“People who make a decision to forego health insurance do not opt out of the health care market,” wrote Obama advisor Stephanie Cutter in a White House blog posting following the ruling. She noted that when people without coverage become ill or injured and cannot pay their bills, their costs are shifted to others. In 2008 alone that cost totaled $43 billion.
To date three appeals courts have upheld the legislation, while one has ruled it unconstitutional, a “circuit split” that all but assures the Supreme Court will ultimately decide the matter. The Supreme Court is scheduled to conduct a close-door-meeting on November 10 to determine whether they will consider the health care reform law during the current term.
November 10, 2011
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-obama%e2%80%99s_healthcare_legislation_ruled_constitutional.html
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