You can read the decision itself here.
Here is a direct quote: "Held: Plaintiffs do not have standing to challenge §5000A(a)’s minimum essential coverage provision because they have not shown a past or future injury fairly traceable to defendants’ conduct enforcing the specific statutory provision they attack as unconstitutional. Pp. 4–16."
I’m probably in the minority here but I’m not terribly disappointed over this.
I have said for years that these states and other affected parties have gone about the whole process of challenging the constitutionality of ObamaCare completely wrong. In fact, they’ve been so consistently wrong that I’m getting more certain that they have no interest in overturning ObamaCare at all.
The simplest way to challenge ObamaCare is to have a state insurance commission approve insurance plans in the state that save customers a ton of money because they don’t meet all the stupid, onerous requirements of ObamaCare — i.e., they may not cover pre-existing conditions, they don’t cover sex change surgery, they don’t cover substance abuse treatments, they don’t cover treatments for STDs, they have annual or lifetime coverage caps, etc. A medical insurance plan that has half these provisions could probably cost at least 50% less than an ObamaCare-compliant plan.
This would clearly be a great avenue for a legal challenge to ObamaCare because the insurance industry is specifically regulated at the STATE level, not by the Federal government.
Here’s my simple question: Why the hell hasn’t the Affordable Care Act ever been challenged on these grounds?
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
From related threads…
Whatever post-FDR era law schools are teaching students, it’s evidently not the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers as the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had intended for those powers to be understood. The misguided Roberts Court has once again ignored that the question of the constitutionallity of national healthcare is not a new test for the Court.
More specifiically, previous generations of state sovereignty-respecting justices had mentioned national healthcare in case opinions as an example of a power that the states have not expressly constitutionally given to Congress.
And if RINOs were to start reading FR, then they would be able to to get institutionally indoctrinated Supreme Court justices up to speed with following major constitutional problems with Obamacare, not that they would be willing to uphold their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution as their supporters expect them to do.
Regarding unconstitutional (imo) Obamacare, the founders made the 10th Amendment to clarify that the Constitution's silence on things like healthcare means that the states reserved the power to tax and spend for public healthcare uniquely to themselves, not the federal government.
"10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Regarding the Obamacare insurance mandate for example, note the fourth entry in the following list, the excerpt from Paul v. Virginia. In that case the Court had clarified that the feds have no Commerce Clause power to regulate insurance regardless if an insurance policy is negotiated across state borders. (FDR's activist justices overturned Paul v. Virginia.)
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress. [emphases added]” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description [emphasis added], as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a state and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass.” —Justice Barbour, New York v. Miln., 1837.
”4. The issuing of a policy of insurance is not a transaction of commerce [emphasis added] within the meaning of the latter of the two clauses, even though the parties be domiciled in different States, but is a simple contract of indemnity against loss.” —Paul v. Virginia, 1869. (The corrupt feds have no Commerce Clause (1.8.3) power to regulate insurance.)
“Direct control of medical practice in the states is obviously [emphases added] beyond the power of Congress.” –Linder v. United States, 1925.
The remedy for the corrupt, unconstitutionally big, post-17th Amendment ratification federal government that is oppressing patriots under its boots…
Patriots need to primary federal and state candidates who don’t clearly promise to help put the federal government back into its constitutionally limited power "cage.”
Always with the 20 million dependent. That number never increases? Whyyyyy? Could it be that the 20 million are stuck being dependent on it, and those who are able to avoid it like the plague?
horrible
That is called 'Medicaid'... good ol' NBC News. Insurance cannot cover pre-existing conditions any more than they can cover your car accident when you didn't have insurance at the time. At one time over 70% of people on Obama care were actually on Medicaid.
Another way to cover pre-existing conditions is to have a $30,000 deductible.
Thinking and truth are the rarest of commodities these days.