In a 78 page ruling you can read here, U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson has issued a summary judgment declaring the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. a.k.a. Obamacare, unconstitutional.
In the opinion, Judge Vinson says that Congress has no authority under the Commerce Clause to enforce the individual mandate, which would have required individuals to purchase health insurance.
I’m reviewing the ruling and will likely post more on this later. The important thing is that the issue of severability is in play – the Act has no “severability clause”, and as such, if any part of the Act is ruled unconstitutional, the entire Act must be treated that way. I’ve written on this in prior posts; the bottom line is that, in their rush to pass health care reform, the Democrats, either by design or by default, didn’t include the necessary language in the bill protecting it from being declared wholly unconstitutional, rather than just the parts specifically relating to an unconstitutional claim.
Judge Vinson speaks of the limited power of the Federal government, and of the Federalist papers. That’s a good start. Developing…