Obamacare On the Ropes

Another federal judge has ruled that the federal mandate requiring citizens to purchase health insurance is unconstitional, setting up an appeal that has to end at the Supreme Court.

In the Democrats and Obama's rush to pass something, anything they could call Health Care Reform, that failed to consider the constitutional limits of their power. Ordering citizens to privately purchase something under threat of a fine or imprisonment, certainly brushes up against those limits.

"Never before has Congress required that everyone buy a product from a private company (essentially for life) just for being alive and residing in the United States," Judge Vinson writes.

The most common comparison by supporters of Obamacare is that the government forces motorists to buy car insurance. But the federal government doesn't. Most, but not all, states do. And driving a car isn't a right. It is a privilege that can be ristricted and taken away. Healthcare is a very different animal. If government can force people to buy health insurance for their own good, it can force them to do jumping jacks too.

Candidate Obama argued against the individual mandate during his campaign for president. And Judge Vinson tossed the president words back at him in his written opinion.

Obamacare is losing both the political and constitutional battle for acceptence. It needs to get before the Supreme Court as soon as possible for a final determination on the mandate question. Given the make-up on the court it either win 5 to 4 or lose 5-4. This is no way to pass serious healthcare reform. Democrats arrogantly imposed Obamacare on the nation in the most partisan fashion and in one of the ugliest and most craven of processes, purchasing votes and support in backroom deals and with flagrant cronyism. They were punished at the polls and lost the House in an historic repudiation because of it.

Instituting a single-payer system, directly taxing people for health care would be constitutional. But voters don't want the nation's healthcare system taken over and run by the government. Even if Obamacare survives a ruling by the Supreme Court, it is deeply unpopular, wrong-headed, and will never deliver lower health insurance rates that were promised by the President.
It can't and it won't. Premiums are already going up. Anger over the bait-and-switch strategy employed by the President and his supporters is not ebbing. The Democrats only hope over the next two years is that the unemployment rate improves along with the economy. Even that probably won't prevent Republicans from winning control of the Senate. From there it will be possible for Republicans to strangle Obamacare in its crib by defunding it.

UPDATE: Jen Rubin discusses "severability" and other legal issues raised by Judge Vinson's decision but not before pointing out how flat-footed the left has been caught by constitutional arguments.

Liberal pundits who have consulted liberal law professors about liberals' great achievement -- ObamaCare -- are pronouncing the ruling by Judge Roger Vinson to be much to do about nothing. The ruling is. . . um. . . thinking of a case liberals hate. . . um. . . just like Bush v. Gore ! (Except it has nothing to do with the Equal Protection Clause or any other aspect of that case.) It is, we are told, "curious," "odd," or "unconventional."

These are complaints, not legal arguments. And they suggest that the left was totally unprepared for the constitutional attack on their beloved handiwork. After all, the recent mocking by the left of conservatives' reverence for the Constitution suggests they are mystified that a 200-year old document could get in the way of their historic achievement. They are truly nonplussed, and so they vamp, not with reasoned analysis but with an outpouring of adjectives.

If the Supreme Court declares Obamacare unconstitutional, maybe the President can once again insult the justices during next year's State of the Union address. But then he will have a lot fewer Democrats in the chamber to stand up and cheer his bad manners.