Obama Health Care Reform Ruling: Appeals Court Upholds Law
Obama Health Care Law Ruling

NEDRA PICKLER 11/ 8/11 03:06 PM ET AP

WASHINGTON — A conservative-leaning appeals court panel on Tuesday upheld the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's health care law, as the Supreme Court prepares to consider this week whether to resolve conflicting rulings over the law's requirement that all Americans buy health care insurance.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a split opinion upholding the lower court's ruling that found Congress did not overstep its authority in requiring people to have insurance or pay a penalty on their taxes, beginning in 2014. The requirement is the most controversial requirement of Obama's signature domestic legislative achievement and the focus of conflicting opinions from judges across the country. The Supreme Court could decide as early as Thursday during a closed meeting of the justices whether to accept appeals from some of those earlier rulings.

The suit in Washington was brought by the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal group founded by evangelist Pat Robertson. It claimed that the insurance mandate is unconstitutional because it forces Americans to buy a product for the rest of their lives and that it violates the religious freedom of those who choose not to have insurance because they rely on God to protect them from harm. But the court ruled that Congress had the power to pass the requirement to ensure that all Americans can have health care coverage, even if it infringes on individual liberty.

"That a direct requirement for most Americans to purchase any product or service seems an intrusive exercise of legislative power surely explains why Congress has not used this authority before – but that seems to us a political judgment rather than a recognition of constitutional limitations," Judge Laurence Silberman, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan wrote in the court's opinion. Silberman was joined by Judge Harry Edwards, a Carter appointee. But, they added, "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."

Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a former aide to President George W. Bush who appointed him to the bench, disagreed with the conclusion without taking a position on the merits of the law. He wrote a lengthy opinion arguing the court doesn't have jurisdiction to review the health care mandate until after it takes effect in 2014.

The federal appeals court in Cincinnati also upheld the law. The federal appeals court in Atlanta struck down the core requirement that Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty, while upholding the rest of the law.

And like Kavanaugh's dissenting opinion, an appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled it was premature to decide the law's constitutionality. This aspect of the court challenges issue involves a federal law aimed at preventing lawsuits from tying up tax collection. Kavanaugh and the Richmond court held that taxpayers must begin paying the penalty for not purchasing insurance before they can challenge it in court.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, which filed the suit in Washington, said the group is considering whether to ask the full appeals court to hear the case or make a request directly to the Supreme Court. "We still remain confident that Obamacare and the individual mandate, which forces Americans to purchase health insurance, is the wrong prescription for America and ultimately will be struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court," Sekulow said.

The White House said Tuesday it is confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the law, as the DC circuit did. Obama adviser Stephanie Cutter said in a White House blog post that opponents who say the individual mandate provision exceeded Congress' power to regulate commerce "are simply wrong."

"People who make a decision to forego health insurance do not opt out of the health care market," she wrote. "Their action is not felt by themselves alone. Instead, when they become ill or injured and cannot pay their bills, their costs are shifted to others. Those costs – $43 billion in 2008 alone – are borne by doctors, hospitals, insured individuals, taxpayers and small businesses throughout the nation."

The liberal interest group Constitutional Accountability Center said the ruling from a solid conservative like Silberman, as the Supreme Court prepares to take up the issue, is a "devastating blow" to opponents of the law.

"With two prominent conservatives, this panel was thought to be a dream come true for conservative challengers of the act," said the center's president, Doug Kendall. "Today that dream became a nightmare, as the panel unanimously rejected the challenges to the act, disagreeing only about why those challenges failed."
For more on the legal history of Obama's health care law, see the slideshow below:
Round 1: The District Courts Divide
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U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh, a Clinton appointee sitting in the Eastern District of Michigan, released the first major Affordable Care Act decision in October 2010. In Thomas More Law Center v. Obama, Steeh sided with the government to hold the law constitutional.

"The decision whether to purchase insurance or to attempt to pay for health care out of pocket is plainly economic," Steeh wrote. "These decisions, viewed in the aggregate, have clear and direct impacts on health care providers, taxpayers and the insured population, who ultimately pay for the care provided to those without insurance."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/08/obama-health-care-reform-_n_1081865.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

Who cares what an appeals court says...not me!

The judge must be up for re-election and needs big pharma and insurance company campaign cotributions!

I thought this would be the largest conflict concerning healthcare. The argument that people can or cant opt out of healthcare the way they can choose not to drive,, and avoid costs.

Its truly interesting because both arguments seem valid to me. A person is free not to use medical services or to be 'billed' for services instead. But they are also free, in a car acceident, to be 'billed' and yet the mandatory car insurance stands.

Noone expects an accident in a car or an illness on their life, but who should be paying the price when it happens? those who took precautions or those who felt like it wouldnt happen to them?

I think the only way to truly argue against the mandate is if hospitals are no longer obligated to accept non insured patients or if they are no longer obligated to offer a personal 'bill' to the patient.

So long as the insured cover the costs of all those who didnt carry insurance or pay their bill, I think its a fair case to make that everyone should contribute (to a healthcare system available to everyone, whether they think they will need it or not) instead of a 'responsible' few.

Problem is that you are 'free' not to use the services...

However you are (by the law) required to pay a penality for not complying. (i.e 'free' ain't really so...)

interesting dilemma

federal judges are life appointees.

And we all know who gets the penalty maney....Clever way to raise taxes w/o calling it taxes isn't it....

I can't help it, you crack me up JR!!

dilemma?? LOL

sure, justifying the meaning of 'free' in a capitalist and governed society,,,,

let me guess....you are fine with it?

fine with what? not having absolute and complete freedom?

sure, I call that chaos when it is applied to hundreds of millions of people trying to co exist


Im also not ok with NO FREEDOM, which I call slavery.

I prefer a compromise somewhere along that long line between the two.

This is a different issue. If I don't have insurance and I don't have money to pay for medical treatment only I suffer.

If I get in a car accident and hurt someone else and don't have money or insurance they are hurt but I am legally responsible for them and can't pay anything. See the difference?

No edical insurance only effects yourself. No car insurance effects any driver you have an accident with.

this is not true. you are discussing direct PHYSICAL harm.

Financially though, the prices for those who take the responsibility to have auto insurance have their rates increased to cover the prices of all those who do NOT have insurance or pay their bills.


similarly, costs are increased for health insurance to help cover the uninsured and those who dont pay their medical bill when an accident or unexpected illness occur that the hospital is obliged by law to treat in an emergency room.

Yup, just wait until the conservative leaning Supreme Court gets their hands on this and strikes it down.

my yob mon.

so where will the penalty taxes that the uninsured pay go? not to the insurance companies. not to the hospital emergency room that's required by law to treat the uninsured. it all goes to the treasury for congress to spend at will.

that's just it!
Another Slushfund for them to spend,and when it is needed,it will be gone on Pork-barreling!

That. As George Carlin once put it, they got the judges in their backpocket. This doesn't surprise me a bit.