Posted on Sunday, 12th December 2010 by
Three federal judges have upheld health care reform.
But, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, has found it unconstitutional.
What will be the immediate effect on health insurance reform? Nothing.
Virginia, through its Attorney General, challenged Section 1501 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This section requires individuals to obtain a minimum level of health insurance or face a penalty. Now, I would just like to point out that nearly every state in the nation requires employers to do that with workers’ compensation and drivers to do the same with automobile liability insurance – but, I digress. In any case, Virginia took particular offense to having its citizens required to obtain a minimum level of health insurance.
Although, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles states Virginia’s law requires, “you must certify that the vehicle is covered by the minimum insurance requirements or pay the uninsured motor vehicle fee.” Which to me seems to be the same sort of government requirement. And Virginia 65.2-801 requires employers to purchase workers compensation insurance. These seem to be pretty compelling mandates requiring the purchase of insurance. But, apparently the Virginia Attorney General sees it differently.
In Commonwealth of Virginia v. Sebelius, 10-CV-00188, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia, Judge Hudson sided with Virginia’s attorney general holding the Section 1501 “exceeds the constitutional boundaries of congressional power.”
The result of this ruling is extremely limited as the Judge recognizes in his decision. The legislation will be headed for a U.S. Supreme Court review at some point. And while many pundits may be anticipating the highest court to strike down the legislation, the fact is that the body of case law gives the federal government significantly broad commerce power and my bet is the legislation will be upheld.
In any case, Judge Hudson seems like a very interesting jurist as this ESPN article from 2007 describes.
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Tags: Care Reform, Health Care, Health Care Reform, Reform
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