13 December 2010
Shortly after noon eastern today FoxNews.com began running this headline in their “Breaking News” banner:
BREAKING NEWS: Federal Judge Rules Against Mandatory Insurance Coverage Clause of New Health Care Law
It’s our understanding this is the case brought about by the attorney general of the Commonwealth of Virginia, which wrote a state law to protect against the individual mandate in the new federal law. The note we received says the judge ruled Congress exceeded some of its authority when writing particular sections of the health care law.
We’re now searching for details from news sources.
Update: Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection has posted, Virginia Judge Declares Health Care Mandate Unconstitutional:
A Judge in Virginia has held the health care mandate to be unconstitutional. The decision is here and embedded below.
The Judge rejected the position of the government that the mandate was an exercise of taxing power…
Go to Legal Insurrection to read the whole thing.
Update 2: NYT via Althouse, “Federal Judge Invalidates Key Provision of Health Care Law”:
Judge Henry E. Hudson… wrote that the law’s central requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance exceeds the regulatory authority granted to Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The insurance mandate is central to the law’s mission of covering more than 30 million uninsured because insurers argue that only by requiring healthy people to have policies can they afford to treat those with expensive chronic conditions.
The judge wrote that his survey of case law “yielded no reported decisions from any federal appellate courts extending the Commerce Clause or General Welfare Clause to encompass regulation of a person’s decision not to purchase a product, not withstanding its effect on interstate commerce or role in a global regulatory scheme.”…
Update: Freedom’s Lighthouse, Robert Gibbs Redefines ObamaCare “Individual Mandate” as “Individual Responsibility”
