U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in Virginia has announced his opinion this morning that strikes down Obamacare as unconstitutional on the grounds of the individual mandate that would require all citizens to purchase health insurance simply due to the fact that they are alive. Liberals in Congress have attempted to justify this provision by overreaching into the commerce clause and even the taxing power of the federal government. If Americans refused to purchase health insurance, they would be penalized with a fine, and if that fine went unpaid, they would go to prison.
The Virginia lawsuit is unrelated to the lawsuits filed by 20 states in Florida, where a decision has yet to come down. The Virginia lawsuit is slightly different in nature from the large suit because Virginia had recently passed a law that was completely contrary to the individual mandate in general, meaning the state statute was going head to head with Obamacare.
Both of these suits, regardless of who wins at the District level, will end up at the Supreme Court in the years to come. Unfortunately the law is a slow moving process at (most) times. However, this victory for states rights and individual freedom is symbolic and moralizing for conservatives and Americans who simply want the government to stop being such a nanny.
New Jersey is not one of the 21 states challenging Obamacare in court, however, the rulings that come down will ultimately affect our citizens the same as those from any other state.
Freedom for whom? Certainly not people with pre-existing conditions. Certainly not people that don't have any type of insurance. And certainly not us, who will still be at the mercy of the insurance companies.
Obama and the Democrats could have avoided all this, by, say, writing a simple one or two-page bill that says the following:
1. No denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.
2. No recisions.
3. Allow competition across state lines.
4. Allow drug reimportation from G7 countries.
5. Allow Medicare to bulk negotiate drug prices.
6. Extend Medicare ("public option") to anyone who wants it (but not forcing people to join who don't want to).
But nooo… they had to invite "input" from every major insurance and drug company, let their lobbyists write the damn thing, and ended up with 2,0000+ pages of mostly industry subsidies and non-reform….so what's next …mulligan ?