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In the big scheme of things, this will change absolutely nobody’s opinion about anything, but since we’ve been questioning the legality of the individual mandate, here it is anyway:
"A federal judge in Virginia on Tuesday rejected a legal challenge to the healthcare reform law, the second time the law’s mandate that people buy insurance has been ruled constitutional.
The lawsuit was brought by Liberty University, which also argued that the law violates the First Amendment by requiring people to buy insurance that could cover abortions.
I hold that there is a rational basis for Congress to conclude that individuals’ decisions about how and when to pay for health care are activities that in the aggregate substantially affect the interstate health care market,” ruled U.S. District Judge Norman Moon, a Clinton appointee. “Nearly everyone will require health care services at some point in their lifetimes, and it is not always possible to predict when one will be afflicted by illness or injury and require care.…"
I imagine “Clinton appointee” jumped out at my conservative friends there, but the judge is hitting on one of the arguments I was making - namely that you can’t just choose not to be sick or hurt. Nobody plans on getting into a car accident, with the possible exception of stuntmen, who I imagine are insured.
And really, what he’s saying isn’t “I, Judge Norman Moon, declare the individual mandate to be constitutional!” but instead he’s ruling that precedent has already been set by prior precedent related to the Commerce Clause.
As for the costs of the choice to not carry insurance:
"“Far from ‘inactivity,’ by choosing to forgo insurance, Plaintiffs are making an economic decision to try to pay for health care services later, out of pocket, rather than now, through the purchase of insurance. As Congress found, the total incidence of these economic decisions has a substantial impact on the national market for health care by collectively shifting billions of dollars on to other market participants and driving up the prices of insurance policies.”"
So, in the end, the judge is saying that not having healthcare isn’t a sin of omission, but one of commission, and one that Congress found ends up spreading the costs around - “redistributing” them, if you will - to others.
As for the more legal mumbo-jumbo regarding the Commerce Clause, ConLaw professor Darren Lenard Hutchinson writes the following on his Dissenting Justice blog:
"Dissenting Justice has analyzed the relationship between health care reform and the Constitution in several previous blog posts. The court’s analysis of the Commerce Clause substantially mirrors the conclusions that those essays reach.
In particular, the court rejects the argument that a decision to remain uninsured cannot constitute economic activity — which Congress can regulate — because it simply represents a decision to refrain from commerce, or merely to exist. The court, however, held that the failure to purchase health insurance is not merely a passive, noncommercial act. Instead, it represents a decision by consumers to self-finance their inevitable use of health care. The court found that Congress could rationally assume that the consumption of medical services by uninsured individuals substantially impacts the market for health care in the nation"
Not much reaction from the right out there yet, but I can imagine the pushback will center not only around the judge’s “Clinton appointee” tag (don’t you wish you could buy stock in phrases - that one’s about to experience a bull market), but also on the usual “legislating from the bench” boilerplate that accompanies these rulings.
Meanwhile, aside from two procedural victories, and predictions that the Supreme Court will eventually have to weigh in, health care lawsuits are still having a hard time gaining traction at the District Court level.
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