Think Progress: BREAKING: 6TH CIRCUIT UPHOLDS CONSTITUTIONALITY OF AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

[flpoljunkie]

BREAKING: 6TH CIRCUIT UPHOLDS CONSTITUTIONALITY OF AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

The majority writes: “We find that the minimum coverage provision is a valid exercise of legislative power by Congress under the Commerce Clause and therefore AFFIRM the decision of the district court.”

Key passage:

By regulating the practice of self-insuring for the cost of health care delivery, the minimum coverage provision is facially constitutional under the Commerce Clause for two independent reasons. First, the provision regulates economic activity that Congress had a rational basis to believe has substantial effects on interstate commerce. In addition, Congress had a rational basis to believe that the provision was essential to its larger economic scheme reforming the interstate markets in health care and health insurance.

More coverage to follow.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/29/257409/breaking-6th-circuit-upholds-constitutionality-of-affordable-care-act/

[jenmito]

1. K&R. n/t

[Ice Number Nine]

2. Long Live 'Obamacare'!! I bet that sticks in some Teabagger craw.

:)

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. Don't count on this getting more than a cursory mention (if that) in the MSM

however, it's clear that not everybody is in agreement with the GOP line that it is unconstitutional. BTW, leaving aside the specifics of ACA and whether or not you want to pay for private or public health insurance coverage, does anybody here personally know anybody that doesn't actually want some kind of health insurance coverage or actually seriously thinks that it's "tyranny" to have to get/pay for some? :shrug:

Thanks for the update.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. I know people who don't need/want medcial insurance,

and who don't want to be forced to buy it.

There are people who have their own "medical savings accounts" and pay out of pocket for their own medical needs.

The meme that EVERYBODY HAS to have insurance has a lot of inherent problems.

My doctor is seriously considering dropping insurance patients.
Not Medicare, she says, even tho they pay less than average insurance, but for profit insurance companies, which
make her waste hours of her time negotiating treatment for her patients when she could be seeing more patients.
she is quite vociferous about this.

[Sheepshank]

12. Sounds like you don't think health care is a basic human right.

The pool in essence ensures some level of coverage for everyone. If we liken this to other 'advanced' nations rather than a payment, its a payroll taxable item. I would prefer it to be a payroll deduction, and I don't doubt it will go in that direction. I know people that NEVER use the library system...yet taxes go towards that institution. I know of people that don't own cars...yet you can be assured they are paying a shar of road maint. and struture.

[dixiegrrrrl]

13. Allow me to clarify, which is often needed in an online discussion.

I was talking about enforced mandatory insurance payments to private companies, not taxes to a government provided service.
Medicare, Medicaid, social programs, etc. have been a government responsible paid from tax dollars, with varying amounts of the funding paid for by the recipient in addition to the taxes.

As it happens, I do not use our library. I have no objections to my tax dollars being used to keep it available. Indeed, I think it is a good thing.

I DO have objections to a mandatory payment of money so that a private for profit system can provide the library services.

[Sheepshank]

14. You don't think that HCR will end up exactly where we thought it would end up?

and that is, Medicare for all?

I have no doubt that is the direction it's going.

Just and SS and Medicare have evoloved, so will HCR.

[girl gone mad]

16. What would be the impetus for such a shift?

Once the insurers get their captive mandated consumers, they will fight tooth and nail to keep a tight grip on the system, and they'll have the funds to buy or destroy anyone who stands in their way.

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. HCR is privatization, with a profit motive.

Medicare is DE-volving, and is on the road to privatization.
It started with Part D prescription coverage thru insurers and the "Supplemental" insurance
part of Medicare.
Attempts to privatize Social Security have long been underway, and will probably succeed if those under 55 don't fight it tooth and nail, and even then that might not help.
Privatization is about PROFIT.
HCR made the insurance industry happy.

[mikekohr]

20. My Wife Is An In-Home Care Nurse, everybody needs insurance , or we foot their bill

We live in a low cost rural area about 2 hours west of Chicago. She had a patient, an investment banker, who got filthy rich and retired to our bucolic county to live on his nest egg of nearly 4 million dollars. He developed a chronic illness. His insurance company dropped him. In about 4 years he ran through all of his savings and when he died, he was on state aid.

People who think they don't need health insurance or coverage are making a huge gamble that the taxpayers cover if they lose that gamble. That's not self reliance that's irresponsiblity, and a willing self delusion to serve their idealogy, while other to foot their bills. I am willing to help others in their misfortune. We should not enable irresponsibilty.

[nykym]

7. And if it does get a mention it will most likely be

a Republicon shill going on about some radical activist judges legislating from the bench on a job killing unconstitutional mandate forcing corporations... Oh you get the drift right!

[onenote]

9. Its a front page story on cnn.com

Also on foxnews.com (albeit below a big scary headline about Obama's "TAX HIKES" and with a snarky headline about the White House "catching a break" from the 6th Circuit)

[jenmito]

11. MSNBC covered it as "Breaking News" and they pointed out that one of the "yes" votes

came from a Repub. judge.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

15. Well shut my mouth!

sometimes my cynicism gets the better of me. Glad to hear.

[flpoljunkie]

4. More on this ruling from the NYT...

The ruling is the first of three opinions to be delivered by separate courts of appeal that heard arguments in the health care litigation in May and June. Opinions are expected soon from panels in both the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va., and the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta.

Lawyers on both sides of the case widely expect the Supreme Court to take one or more of the cases, perhaps as soon as its coming term, which starts in October. The speed of the Sixth Circuit ruling could help ensure that timing.

The Sixth Circuit opinion was the first on the merits that has not broken down strictly along seemingly partisan lines. Two of the judges on the panel were appointed by Republican presidents and one was appointed by a Democrat. At the lower District Court level, five judges have divided on the question, with three Democratic appointees ruling in favor of the law and two Republican appointees rejecting it.

The appeal, which was heard by the court on June 1, came in a challenge to the law filed by the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative public interest law firm in Ann Arbor, Mich. In a 69-page ruling, the panel upheld Federal District Judge George C. Steeh of Detroit, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, who had concluded that choices to not obtain insurance were impactful commercial decisions that could be regulated by Congress.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/us/30health.html?hp

[CitizenLeft]

21. great news! And thanks for the follow-up!

[Scurrilous]

6. K & R

:thumbsup:

[jefferson_dem]

8. Huge!

"Bush-Appointed Former Scalia Clerk Upholds Constitutionality Of Health Care Law"
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/bush-appointed-former-scalia-clerk-upholds-constitutionality-of-health-care-law.php

[onenote]

10. The three judges who decided the case:

A Dubya appointee (wrote the opinion)
A Carter appointee
A Reagan appointee (concurred)

[girl gone mad]

17. Wonder what defective products the government will force us to buy next.

[Prism]

19. The magical commerce clause

That renders all other portions of the Constitution completely moot and gives the federal government unlimited power to do whatever it pleases by claiming interstate commerce (and in an increasingly homogenous, federalized America, pretty much all economic activity of any kind is considered interstate at this point).

Terrible decision. Sure, people like it now because it's being given this infinite power to support Democratic legislation, but this is wretched, wretched reasoning (note all the Republican judges), and it's going to bite us square on the ass once the Republicans get back in power.

I said this to my Republican friends when Bush was in office. "Sure, you say all this executive power is necessary now, but wait until someone you hate starts exercising it."

And sure enough, they loathe Obama for doing the same things they approved under Bush.

We're going to rue the day we hand an increasingly unfettered commerce clause to a Republican majority.

This is Pyrrhic at best.