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Court Strikes Part of Healthcare Law
As we previously reported, U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson, a judge in the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola Division, ruled in January that the healthcare reform law’s individual mandate represents an unconstitutional overreaching of Congressional authority and therefore makes the entire law void. The U.S. government appealed Judge Vinson’s ruling to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. In upholding the part of Judge Vinson’s ruling that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, the majority of the 11th Circuit explained, “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.” While the appeals court agreed with Judge Vinson regarding the individual mandate provision, the court reversed part of his decision that struck down the entire health care reform law, noting that the “individual mandate, however, can be severed from the remainder of the Act’s myriad reforms.” The appeals court found instead that, “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.” The 11th Circuit’s decision represents the first time a federal appeals court has struck down a provision of the healthcare reform law, which is facing multiple legal challenges nationwide that have resulted in a number of contradictory opinions from the courts. For example, in June, an appeals court in Ohio upheld the law’s individual mandate. The government is expected to appeal the 11th Circuit’s decision, and the case is expected to eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court. Related resources: Copyright © 2012. North Carolina Family Policy Council. All rights reserved.
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