An overreaching judge on our side for a change.
“An overreaching judge on our side for a change.”
The judge did not overreach. The opinion is perfectly reasoned. The Supreme Court liberals and Roberts ruled that the financial penalty for not purchasing health insurance was a tax. (The liberals and Roberts were incorrect, but this current judge is stuck with having to view the penalty as a tax.) Therefore, assuming it is a tax, then the Supreme Court also ruled that the individual mandate, meaning, the requirement that every individual get health insurance (with some exceptions), was only Constitutional because there was a tax on not getting the insurance. The Federal Government’s taxing power made the individual mandate constitutional, according to the liberals and Roberts. In 2017, the Republicans in Congress reduced the tax to zero, beginning in 2019. Without the tax, there is nothing to provide Constitutional authority for it. (Roberts and the conservatives ruled that the individual mandate could not be justified under the Commerce Clause power.) Now that the individual mandate is unconstitutional (because the tax that justified it has been reduced to zero), the next issue is whether the rest of Obamacare is unconstitutional as well. Because the Congress in 2010 and the Supreme Court have recognized that the individual mandate is an essential part of Obamacare, the rest of Obamacare cannot survive the demise of the individual mandate. A great opinion by this judge, IMHO.
#33. Not overreaching. He based his decision on the new situation re Obamacare, with the “tax” provision having been legally abolished by the Congress. That meant that the original bill collapsed because it’s original central support bricks were defective or replaced with something else (i.e. a new law that addressed the old issue of “tax”).
I've been wondering (and complaining) for years that only leftist kook judges throw their weight around, issuing rulings that violate not only the will of the people, but common sense.
It would be great if this ruling is the first of many like it.
Declared unconstitutional because it is.