Judge rules that Government can require citizens to buy health insurance under the new Health Care Reform Act. Michigan Judge's Ruling Upholding Federal Health Care is First in Nation
|
||||||||||
| Printer Friendly Story View |
If the U.S. Supreme Court can prohibit the possession of home-grown marijuana for personal use, then it can also require citizens to buy health insurance under the new Health Care Reform Act.
That is one of the precepts laid down by Federal District Judge George C. Steeh, of Detroit, last Thursday in the nation's first ruling on a challenge to the health law.
The plaintiffs seeking an injunction against the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" say Congress lacked authority under the Commerce Clause to pass the act and contend that the penalty provision is an unconstitutional tax.
The act, which regulates a broader interstate market in health care services, is an essential part of a comprehensive regulatory scheme, said the judge, commenting:
"The uninsured, like plaintiffs, benefit from the 'guaranteed issue' provisions in the act, which enables them to become insured even when they are already sick. This benefit makes imposing the minimum coverage provision appropriate."
The Health Reform Act seeks to reduce the number of uninsured Americans and the escalating costs on the health care system. This is the first ruling in a host of court challenges across the nation.
In its legislative findings, Congress explains that it enacted the Health Care Reform Act "to address a national crisis -- an interstate health care market in which tens of millions of Americans are without insurance coverage and in which the cost of medical treatment has spiraled out of control."
"Congress found that without the individual mandate, the reforms in the Act, such as the ban on denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, would increase the incentives for individuals to wait to purchase health insurance until they needed care." That would shift even greater costs onto third parties, the court said.
Decisions by individuals to forgo insurance coverage and pay for health care out of pocket drive up the cost of insurance, Congress said. Costs thereby are shifted to health care providers, taxpayers and people who are insured.
Absence of the individual mandate "would undercut federal regulation of the health insurance market," according to Congress.
One of the main objections of the plaintiffs, a group from Ann Arbor under the sponsorship of the Thomas More Law Center, is that if they do not buy health insurance and are forced to pay a tax, the money could go into the general fund and be used to fund abortions.
"The restriction on home-grown marijuana for personal use was essential to the act's broader regulatory scheme," said Judge Steeh in his ruling issued Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010 in the Eastern District of Michigan, a federal court that includes Bay City.
The judge held: "The Supreme Court sustained Congress's power to impose obligations on individuals who claimed not to participate in interstate commerce, because those obligations were components of broad schemes regulating interstate commerce."
Plaintiffs have not shown any injury as a result of the act, in part because it does not take effect until 2014, the judge held, challenging their standing to bring the suit.
The applicability of the Commerce Clause being the key to the case, the court cited two cases:
1-A 1942 case in which the court ruled that a farmer could be penalized for growing wheat for home consumption despite his protest that he did not intend to put it on the market, thus undermining the efficacy of the federal price stabilization scheme; and
2-A 2005 case in which the court supported the notion that the Commerce Clause gave Congress broad powers to regulate even purely local matters that have substantial economic effects, i.e., the regulation of home-grown marijuana.
In both those cases, the Supreme Court sustained Congress's power to impose obligations on individuals who claimed not to participate in interstate commerce, because those obligations were components of broad schemes regulating interstate commerce, said the court.
###
| Printer Friendly Story View |
|
|
Dave Rogers |
|
|
|
Printer-Friendly Story View
0200 Nd: 04-16-2024 d 4 cpr 0
12/31/2020 P3v3-0200-Ad.cfm
SPONSORED LINKS
12/31/2020 drop ads P3v3-0200-Ad.cfm