New day in court for health reform

Health Care Judge Vinson Reportedly Proposes Selling Insurance In Emergency Rooms
Health Care Judge Vinson Reportedly Proposes Selling Insurance In Emergency Rooms Today, Judge Roger Vinson heard oral arguments in the multi-state Lawsuit claiming that the provision of the Affordable Care Act requiring most Americans to either carry insurance or pay slightly more income taxes is Unconstitutional. After the hearing, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum (R) co-hosted a Press Conference in which he expressed optimism that the landmark law would be strike down. As part of thi...

Judge Leery of Health Mandate
PENSACOLA, Fla.—A Federal Judge in a 20-state Lawsuit against the Obama Administration's health overhaul signaled Thursday he is sympathetic to the plaintiffs' argument that requiring Americans to carry Health Insurance violates the Constitution. But Judge Roger Vinson seemed skeptical of the second plank of the states' suit: that the law forces states into a costly expansion of their Medicaid Insurance programs for the poor. The hearing in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of ...

Commerce Clause For Alarm, Part 2
This week's ruling on the Health Insurance mandate wasn't the win the Republicans were looking for. Virginia Federal Judge Hudson found the mandate Unconstitutional, but he also specifically refused to throw out the entire Health Care reform law, as Ezra Klein reminds us. Hudson pointedly refused. "The Court will sever only Section 1501 [the Individual Mandate] and directly-dependent provisions which make specific reference to 1501." That last clause has made a lot of pro-reform legal analysts v...

Ohealthcare judicial opinion reveals 11th hour deceit by Congress to avoid scrutiny
I originally began this post to reconcile what’s going on in the various courts INRE O’healthcare. Indeed, I will do just that, as it is all interrelated. But I first want to lead with the most surprising revelation I’ve read in the opinions and various rulings thus far on the major Lawsuits that have hit the news… and that is the inadvertent confession of the lead counsel for Obama’s HHS in oral arguments during the Commonwealth of Virginia vs Sebelius process. Bec...

TX Attorney General: Health Law Infringes On The Freedoms Of People Who Are Worth Billions
TX Attorney General: Health Law Infringes On The Freedoms Of ‘People Who Are Worth Billions’ This afternoon, following oral arguments in the Florida-based multi-state challenge to the Affordable Care Act, Attorneys General Greg Abbot (TX) and Bill McCollum (FL) held a Press Conference on the steps of the court house, in which the pair made two very peculiar arguments against the Health Care law. McCollum bragged that if the mandate is declared Unconstitutional, the Insurance compa...

That Other Individual Mandate Lawsuit
In Pensacola, Fla. today, Federal Judge Roger Vinson indicated he sympathizes with those who say the Affordable Care Act's Individual Mandate violates the Constitution. If Vinson ultimately rules that the requirement that all Americans maintain health Insurance Coverage is Unconstitutional, it would be a second brutal court blow to the Obama Administration. Earlier this week, a federal judge in Virginia ruled the Federal Government does not have the power to impose the individual mandate. Two o...

Healthcare suit a mandate question
Published: Dec. 16, 2010 at 5:31 PM Va. official: Healthcare battle ongoing PENSACOLA, Fla., Dec. 16 (UPI) -- A Florida judge hearing a healthcare Lawsuit Thursday asked if the Federal Government could require everyone to buy broccoli, media reports said. Could they (the government) "mandate everybody has to buy a certain amount of broccoli?" U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson asked during oral arguments on challenges to the Healthcare Reform bill, Politico reported. "It's not shoes. It's not broc...

So Far Health Care Rulings Are Disturbingly Predictable
I’m hoping for the moment when a Federal Judge picked by a Democratic president strikes down the Health Care law. Or when a Republican-appointed judge upholds it. Either way. Because the current lineup of decisions, in which two Democratic-nominated judges have ruled in favor of the law, one Republican against, is not healthy for the judiciary or the democratic process. It is facile to think of judges as umpires robotically calling balls and strikes. But it is also dangerous to think of j...

Community health centers to play a key role in health care reform
WASHINGTON--The new medical office Lawrence Cross has in mind to serve Norwalk's neediest residents will be unusual in almost every conceivable way. For one thing, the exam rooms will be inside a van, not a bricks-and-mortar building. So one of the most important new staff members he'll need to hire is a driver. And even more critical than the doctor, who will only ride along a couple days a week, is the dental hygienist, along with a pricey portable chair for teeth cleanings. Then there's the...

Health-care reform: Battleground shifts to Florida courtroom (The Christian Science Monitor)
Miami – The escalating Legal Battle over the constitutionality of President Obama’s health-care reform law moves Thursday to Florida and to a Federal Judge who has already expressed skepticism about the statute. In October, US District Judge Roger Vinson dismissed four of six counts in the Florida-based Lawsuit challenging the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But in upholding two other counts, the judge appeared receptive to arguments questioning the constitutional validity ...

Health reform: Terminal or curable?
“THIS Lawsuit is not about Health Care, it’s about liberty.” So crowed Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s attorney-general, this week after winning a favourable ruling in Federal Court. He had brought a Lawsuit arguing that part of the administration’s new health law, an “Individual Mandate” requiring everyone to have Health Insurance, is Unconstitutional. He also argued that all of ObamaCare must be struck down. In his ruling the judge, Henry Hudson, gave cons...

Judges, ideology and partisanship
I'm hoping for the moment when a Federal Judge picked by a Democratic president strikes down the health-care law. Or when a Republican-appointed judge upholds it. Either way. Because the current lineup of decisions, in which two Democratic-nominated judges have ruled in favor of the law, one Republican against, is not healthy for the judiciary or the democratic process. It is facile to think of judges as umpires robotically calling balls and strikes. But it is also dangerous to think of judges ...

Obama Has Plan To Bypass Supreme Court On Health Care
WASHINGTON (AP) — The courts may not get the last word after all on President Barack Obama’s historic Health Care overhaul. A Virginia Federal Judge ruled this week that the law’s key requirement for individuals to carry Health Insurance is Unconstitutional. But even if the Supreme Court ultimately agrees, Obama has a readily available Plan B. The administration could borrow a strategy that Medicare has used successfully for decades. Medicare’s coverage for doctor visits is...

Letters to the Editor: Dec. 17, 2010
The congressional virgins have one last chance to reform Washington the way Barack Obama said he would do but failed at every step when he refudiated his many election pledges. But to maintain their virtue, they need to change the language of the debate. Words matter. Madam Speaker deserves credit for using the vocabulary of "reform" to force everyone into the maws of Medicare/Medicaid after bankrupting the private Insurance competition. When the little old lady on TV talks about her "free" moto...

"It would be a giant leap for the Supreme Court to say that a decision to buy or not to buy is tantamount to activity"
The Wall Street Journal’s Janet Adamy reports from today’s hearings in Pensacola in the ObamaCare challenge filed by Florida and 19 other states. As she notes, Federal Judge Roger Vinson “signaled he’s sympathetic to the plaintiffs’ argument”: The plaintiffs, a group of mostly Republican governors and attorneys general, contended that requiring Americans to carry Insurance is beyond the Federal Government's power under the Constitution's commerce clause. They say failing

Rep. Pete Stark: Dangerous to America's Health: The Effects of Republicans' Push to Repeal Health Reform
Today I am releasing a report: "Dangerous to America's Health, the Republican Plan to Dismantle America's Health Care." The Affordable Care Act is already providing health coverage to Uninsured people with Pre-existing Conditions and young adults, and lowering drug costs for seniors. In time, it will help millions more. Yet Republicans fought us every step of the way and used every tool - including outright lies -- to try to kill health reform. The Republicans failed, but they won't give up. N...

New insurance rate regulations pending
Highly anticipated Regulations defining what constitutes "unreasonable" Health Insurance premium increases are expected any day now that federal Regulators have sent them to the Office of Management and Budget for final review. Democrats' Healthcare Reform law gives the Federal Government greater Oversight of Health Insurance premium increases by requiring a review and justification of steep increases. The law requires health plans to publicly justify "unreasonable" rate hikes starting with 20...

Models in short skirts, lab coats scammed bone marrow donors: claim
Stumble This! Call it a case of seduction for a good cause. A New England Bone Marrow registry is under investigation after using models in short skirts and lab coats to convince members of the public to submit to a Bone Marrow sample. What the models allegedly did not tell the Donors -- who were told they could potentially save a life by signing up -- is that their Health Insurance would be charged $4,300 for the procedure. Caitlin Raymond International Registry, a group that works to match bo...

S.I. Adam, M.D.: U.S. Health Care Reform, As Seen From the Trenches (Part 5 of 6)
Given the social, economic, and political complexities of U.S. Health Care, Legislation targeted payment as its primary vehicle for reform. Improvements in finance and expansion of Medicaid will transition to wider coverage for the 15 percent of the population sans Insurance. A market derived structure, incentivized by The Dollar, without regard for the well being of patients is responsible for problematic health care delivery. The organization and financing of medical care in the United State...

Wheres the Beef?
When it comes to the Obama Administration’s argument for why ObamaCare’s Individual Mandate is constitutional, I’m left asking “Where’s the beef”? The administration, in the form of AG Eric Holder, is making noises but there isn’t much in terms of substance. James Taranto has noticed this, too: The piece is titled “Health Reform Will Survive Its Legal Fight.” Here is the basis for Attorney General Holder’s confidence in his client̵...

OVERNIGHT HEALTH: Pitts, Burgess named at top of E&C; health panel
Welcome to The Hill's evening roundup of the day's health policy news and advance look at tomorrow's schedule. Thursday's health news: Pitts, Burgess named at top of E&C health panel: Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman-in-waiting of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, announced on Thursday the chairs and vice-chairs on his committee. As predicted, Abortion rights foe Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) got the chairmanship of the health subcommittee in a sop to Conservatives who bitte...

Florida Federal Judge Still Not Persuaded That Health-Care Law is Legal
By Ashby Jones The early reports are in, and it seems that Pensacola Federal Judge Roger Vinson has some sympathy for the argument that requiring Americans to carry Health Insurance violates the Constitution. According to Janet Adamy’s story in the WSJ, Judge Vinson signaled that much on Thursday in a hearing in yet another case challenging the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s health-care law. Color us not surprised at all. Vinson tipped his hand back in October when, i...

U.S., states spar in Florida court over health law
By Michael Peltier PENSACOLA, Florida | Thu Dec 16, 2010 5:15pm EST PENSACOLA, Florida (Reuters) - Attorneys for the Obama Administration and 20 U.S. states sparred in court on Thursday over whether the new healthcare law oversteps constitutional limits on federal authority by requiring most Americans to buy medical Insurance. Following three hours of Testimony, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson said he planned to make a decision "as quickly as possible, but noted the case will take time to ex...

Laymans Guide to Obamacare Decision
Judge Henry Hudson’s recent decision in Virginia v. Sebelius rejected the notion that ObamaCare’s Individual Mandate is constitutionally justified as either a Regulation of interstate commerce or a tax for the general welfare. First we will examine the Individual Mandate as a Regulation of interstate commerce, but some basic background of Commerce Clause jurisprudence is in order.  In Perez v. United States (1971), the Supreme Court outlined three kinds of commerce for which Congr...

Administration uses Medicare grants to spread the word about healthcare reform
State-based programs that help spread the word about Medicare benefits will have to increase beneficiaries' awareness about benefits of the Healthcare Reform law in order to get Federal Grants next year, the Medicare agency announced Thursday.  Fiscal 2011 Grants for State Health Insurance Assistance Programs will require that beneficiaries be made aware of "certain provisions" in the law, including "new Medicare prevention and wellness benefits, Fraud initiatives, including how beneficiaries...