Healthcare Reform Is Ruled Constitutional

So yesterday, another court ruling held the Affordable Care Act constitutional...

The health-care law seeks to extend medical coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans and make major changes in public and private health insurance. By far the most contested provision is the individual mandate, which requires most Americans to purchase at least a minimum level of health insurance starting in 2014 and imposes a tax penalty if they don’t.

Like other legal challenges, the lawsuit filed by the Thomas More Law Center — a Christian-oriented law firm in Michigan — says Congress overstepped its constitutional authority to regulate commerce.

A three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit disagreed. The mandate is constitutional, Martin wrote, because “Congress had a rational basis to believe” that the provision would affect interstate commerce and that it was “essential” to the law’s broader goals of reforming the health-care market.

Judge James Graham, a Republican appointee, dissented, but it was the concurrence of Sutton — a George W. Bush appointee and former law clerk for conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia — that was most noteworthy.

Sutton wrote that “the government has the better of the arguments” and that “Congress . . . did not exceed its power” in passing the individual mandate. But he also appeared to acknowledge that his word would not be final, writing, “The Supreme Court has considerable discretion in resolving this dispute.”

According to Daily Kos, who also links to a copy of the opinion, that makes the latest score 3-2...

Thus far, five lower-level district court judges have ruled on the merits of the challenges, with three upholding the law’s constitutionality and two striking down all or part of it.

I wish to hell it would just go to the Supreme Court so we all could just move on, one way or another. This treading water is getting old and does nothing to move us forward as a nation toward better healthcare.

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