Health-care law takes a big hit

A federal judge in Florida this week ruled that President Obama’s health-care overhaul is “void” because it

unconstitutionally forces Americans to buy health insurance. In a 78-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Roger

Vinson, a Reagan appointee, said that Congress had overstepped its powers by mandating fines, under the Affordable Care Act, for anyone who isn’t insured. The judge backed the challenge brought by 26 states with the pointed analogy that a nation founded in opposition to “paying tax on tea” shouldn’t let government “force people to buy tea in the first place.” Two judges appointed by Democrats previously upheld the law.

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Vinson, the second Republican appointee to rule against it, was the first to throw out the entire act, arguing that the reform plan was based on the mandate for all Americans to have insurance. Some states said they would now stop preparing to implement the health-care law altogether, but the White House insisted it remains in effect pending an appeal. The Supreme Court will ultimately decide the law’s fate, most likely in 2012.

Judge Vinson’s “exhaustive and erudite opinion” thwarts a massive overreach of federal power, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. The Commerce Clause, which the Obama administration cites to justify its intrusion into individuals’ health-care decisions, allows Congress to regulate “interstate trade,” not force people to buy insurance. Now no one doubts that “Obamacare is unconstitutional,” said The Washington Times, “except Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and President Obama.”

Those three have no one to blame but themselves, said David Weigel in Slate.com. The Democrats panicked when Scott Brown’s surprise victory in Massachusetts deprived them of a filibuster-proof majority, so they “rammed” the bill through Congress without adding the standard “severability clause,” which states that a law remains in effect if part of it is struck down. That’s why health reform now lies “tattered on Judge Vinson’s carpet.”

Vinson’s overtly partisan ruling is the second coming of Bush v. Gore, said Ben Adler in Newsweek. His Tea Party–colored language makes it clear he’s motivated by politics, not the law, and undermines his ruling. More important, it won’t sit well with Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote on the Supreme Court, a man particularly fond of trying to find “common ground.”