Remember all the Media Attention to the Court calling the Health reform Unconstitutional?

[rgbecker]

Seems no one cares about this Judges' ruling:

"A third federal judge upheld the constitutionality of the Obama health care law on Tuesday, reinforcing the divide in the lower courts as the case moves toward its first hearings on the appellate level.

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The judge suggested in her 64-page opinion that not buying insurance was an active choice that had clear effects on the marketplace by burdening other payers with the cost of uncompensated medical care.

“Because of this cost-shifting effect,” she wrote, “the individual decision to forgo health insurance, when considered in the aggregate, leads to substantially higher insurance premiums for those other individuals who do obtain coverage.”

Judge Kessler added: “It is pure semantics to argue that an individual who makes a choice to forgo health insurance is not ‘acting,’ especially given the serious economic and health-related consequences to every individual of that choice. Making a choice is an affirmative action, whether one decides to do something or not do something.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/health/policy/23health.html?_r=1&ref=politics

[WinkyDink]

1. So, if corporations pay no taxes, can they be deemed criminal for making the rest of us pay more?

Since when has the cost of anything been for a judge to decide, let alone the consequences of NOT buying something?

"The judge suggested in her 64-page opinion that not buying insurance was an active choice that had clear effects on the marketplace by burdening other payers with the cost of uncompensated medical care.

“Because of this cost-shifting effect,” she wrote, “the individual decision to forgo health insurance, when considered in the aggregate, leads to substantially higher insurance premiums for those other individuals who do obtain coverage.”
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Where, pray, is the proof, hard proof, of this cause-and-effect? Is not the more LIKELY cause of higher premiums simply that the HCI WANTS TO MAKE HIGHER PROFITS??

This ruling is a joke.

[Jmaxfie1]

2. Its like anti-vaccination people

They think why should I vaccinate my child when because everyone else does the risks of my child getting ill are very low. It the same for healthcare.

[WinkyDink]

4. Yet another completely irrelevant "analogy." Is there an IRS penalty attached to a refusal to

vaccinate? Is there even a cost to vaccinate? Is getting a vaccination an on-going payment throughout one's entire life?

[gratuitous]

3. Unconstitutional: A1, wall-to-wall, coverage

Constitutional: Meh. If it's mentioned at all, it's on A14 or complaining about "activist" judges.