U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson issued a ruling from Pensacola on Monday declaring the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.
In his ruling on a lawsuit initiated by Florida and joined by 25 other states, Judge Vinson struck down the individual mandate portion of the law, which enacts penalties on those who do not obtain health insurance, contending that Congress exceeded its powers and violated the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain, for it would be difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power and we would have a Constitution in name only, Judge Vinsons ruling states.
But the ruling also went further than a similar Virginia court ruling issued in December, cutting down the entire health care law. Judge Vinsons ruling states that because one portion of the law is unconstitutional, the entire law should be struck down because there is no clause in the health care law that provides severability, or that allows the rest of the law to stand if part of it is ruled unconstitutional.
There are simply too many moving parts in the act and too many provisions dependent (directly and indirectly) on the individual mandate and other health insurance provisions ... for me to try and dissect out the proper from the improper, and the able-to-stand-alone from the unable-to-stand-alone, the ruling states.
What (the ruling) says is its about liberty, not about health care, said Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi's office took over the case from former Attorney General Bill McCollum, who initiated the lawsuit.
The ruling was greeted along partisan lines in Florida, as Democrats derided it and stood up for the signature piece of legislation passed in President Barack Obamas first two years in office, and Republicans applauded the ruling and called for the U.S. Senate to take up a repeal of the law.
I applaud the ruling today by Judge Vinson. In making his ruling, the judge has confirmed what many of us knew from the start: Obamacare is an unprecedented and unconstitutional infringement on the liberty of the American people, Gov. Rick Scott said.
In a case of role reversal, Democrats reacting to the ruling found themselves decrying judicial activism, a traditional rallying cry of conservatives.
(Mondays) decision is not only wrong for Floridas seniors, children and small-business owners who are already benefiting from the Affordable Care Act, but this latest example of conservative judicial activism wrongly interprets the Constitution, said Florida Democratic Party Executive Director Scott Arceneaux.
The ruling was also an opportunity for Republican state legislators to tout their own actions at trying to pull back the health care law, citing a measure being pushed by Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, that would put a constitutional amendment before voters to allow them to opt out of the health care law.
While (Mondays) ruling is a significant step toward repealing this detrimental legislation, we will continue to move forward with President Haridopolos SJR 2, the Health Care Freedom Act, co-sponsored by all Republican members of the Florida Senate, said Senate Majority Leader Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando.
For his part, Haridopolos called on his potential opponent in the 2012 U.S. Senate race, incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, to back a bill repealing the health care law already passed by the U.S. House. Haridopolos became the first person to declare his candidacy last month in what is likely to be a crowded Republican field to unseat Nelson.
With two straight federal courts ruling Obamacare unconstitutional, this sends a clear message to the United States Senate that it should follow the action of the House to repeal the health care law. I call on Senator Bill Nelson to join Senator Marco Rubio in supporting the repeal, Haridopolos said.
The repeal bill, however, is unlikely to find support in the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate, and would almost certainly be vetoed by President Obama, anyway. Still, supporters of repeal and of the lawsuit, while pleased with the ruling, want to use all available tools to fight the law.
The National Federation of Independent Businesses, which joined the Florida lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, is supportive of all efforts to repeal the law.
NFIB is fighting the health care law on all fronts, said Karen Harned, executive director of the NFIB small-business legal center.
While the individual mandate portion of the law will not take effect until 2014, Harned said the law is already having a negative impact on small businesses in the form of increased premiums over and above health care inflation.
Now small businesses can begin working on creating jobs instead of figuring out how to comply with the federal health care law, said NFIB Florida Executive Director Bill Herrle.
Reach Gray Rohrer at grohrer@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
