…or at least the guys who don’t think the government should be able to tell us we have to buy something or we will be penalized. Last week, Monday to be precise, yeah I know I’m a little behind on this, a federal judge in Virginia declared the section of the Healthcare reform bill, dubbed Obamacare by many conservative groups, that required individuals to purchase health insurance or be faced with a penalty unconstitutional.
In specific the judge said that the bill’s reliance on the massively overused Interstate Commerce Clause was unfounded. the interstate commerce clause in short gives the federal government the right to regulate trade between states and between states and foreign entities. It’s used as a justification in pretty much every single bill that passes through the House and Senate and is used to uphold both the well founded and foolish rulings made by the Supreme Court. The judge said that the constitution gives Congress the right to put restrictions on buying and selling goods, but it cannot force citizens to buy goods or pay a fine.
The reason this ruling is a good thing: The Government owns GM right? What if Congress decided that every American needs to own a GM Truck. Then they just pass a law that says “Everyone buy a GM Truck or pay an extra $1000.00 on your taxes.” Without this ruling, the Obamacare bill could be used as a precedent for Congress doing things like that. You think we live a socialist hell/fascist dictatorship now? Wait until the government is forcing you to buy Oreos instead of just brainwashing you into buying them through subliminal advertising. (How many of you can now say after reading the last sentence that you don’t want some Oreos now, at least a little?).
Now some of you might be saying: “Oh noes! The massively heavy handed attempt to “fix” the heathcare system is going to fail!” Well that’s not entirely the case. There are those pesky appeals that are now starting to hit the desks of the appeals courts. Plus there is the 20 state lawsuit occurring in Florida right now, so a lot of this is still very much up in the air. But hey, this was better news than the last two, whereby the law was upheld by judges in Michigan and Virginia. Eventually it’ll hit the Supreme Court and the real circus will begin.
What is going to be most interesting to me is whether or not Obama will still be in the White House by that time. Many of the measures in the Bill don’t take effect until 2014 and later, meaning that a different man or woman may be running the country. It will be interesting to see if they actually enact the law while it is still waiting to be tried on, because, and this is just a guess, I don’t think it’ll make it to the Supreme Court before then. More fun for the future I suppose.
