A Florida judge rules that Obamacare is unconstitutional
In what is being called the biggest blow yet to Barack Obama’s signature legislation, a Florida judge has ruled that the entire healthcare reform law is unconstitutional. Judge Roger Vinson ruled that the individual healthcare mandate was unconstitutional, a verdict which was also reached by a Virginia justice late last year, but this decision goes even further because Judge Vinson declared that because the healthcare mandate was so vital to the overall law, and because the healthcare mandates were inseparable from the law as a whole, that the whole healthcare reform law is unconstitutional.
Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void,” he wrote, “This has been a difficult decision to reach and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications
And Judge Vinson continued:
Regardless of how laudable its attempts may have been to accomplish these goals in passing the act, Congress must operate within the bounds established by the Constitution
The Barack Obama regime feels that the end justifies the means; so even if a law which the Obama regime feels is a vital and admirable position to take is unconstitutional they believe the goal is so just that they should be able to ignore the constitution. That statement above by Judge Vinson is in direct contradiction to Obama’s belief that he has carte blanche to do whatever he wants if he feels he is doing the right thing. Judge Vinson is reminding Barack Obama that his powers are still limited to those which are enumerated in the constitution.
But what might be the most interesting aspect of this ruling is that Judge Vinson used Barack Obama’s own words against him in this ruling:
I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that ‘if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house
Barack Obama either changed his mind about the healthcare mandate somewhere along the line or he always supported the mandates and was lying to the American people when he was a candidate because he knew the mandates were both unconstitutional and unpopular with the American people.
The most frustrating part of this decision is the fact that Judge Vinson stopped short of ordering an injunction against the healthcare reform law and that is something that I just don’t understand. We now have two justices who have ruled that Obamacare is unconstitutional and yet nobody seems willing to step in and order a temporary halt against the implementation of this law as the case makes its way to the Supreme Court. I just don’t understand how the law is still being allowed to be implemented when it has been ruled unconstitutional. When the Arizona immigration law was ruled unconstitutional an injunction was immediately ordered to stop the implementation of the law pending the results of the appeal process, yet Obamacare is still going to be allowed to move forward even with the uncertainty surrounding the constitutionality of the law.
Barack Obama has been imploring the new Republican led House not to “refight the battles” of the last year and I think it is fairly obvious that the reason for this is because he knows the law is unconstitutional and he was hoping that the states would drop their lawsuits if the Congress showed little interest in repealing the law. But that is not going to happen and this is going to be an issue in the 2012 campaign whether Barack Obama likes it or not; he will not be able to hide the fact that in all likelihood he oversaw a huge affront to personal liberties, freedom, and the constitution all because he felt that he knew what is best for the American people because we were not smart enough to know what was in our own best interest.
This decision was a major victory for the American people, but much like the earlier Virginia decision, this fight is just beginning. It is going to take many months for this to be resolved and it seems likely to me that in the end the Supreme Court will rule against this law (that is unless the case is extended long enough to give Barack Obama one more Supreme Court nomination) but until that time it looks as if the law will be enforced as if there was no case pending and that is a shame.
The next question is: Will any of the 26 states which are now challenging the healthcare reform law stand up and demand an injunction against the law pending the appeals? It certainly seems as if momentum is on our side and I truly don’t understand why nobody is calling for a temporary halt on the Obamacare legislation. Perhaps that will come in the near future but for now it looks as if we are going to have to settle for the Florida and Virginia rulings and hope that the justice prevails and the constitution is upheld by the Supreme Court.
America's Watchtower 
If Obama continues to push ObamaCare, he can now be held for contempt of court, can he not?
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Hmmm…..an interesting question!
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Judge Vinson made much of the lack of a severability clause, which would have allowed lawmakers to remove the mandate and add in another basis to build the rest upon.
Unless the USSC overturns this decision for some reason, this also means that the RINOs in Congress can’t take it apart piecemeal, either. They’ll have to start over again from scratch… if they think doing a national health care plan is safe at all!
It appears that in their arrogance, the Democrats made a critical error in this 2000+ page monstrosity!
If this is upheld, we can get on to fixing the system with one item at a time… interstate sales of insurance, tort reform, etc., instead of one, monsterous, unreadable hunk of junk!
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Agreed! The law is dead if this is upheld and if it isn’t, then it is time for the Republicans to begin tearing apart this bill. I think this ruling gives the Republicans the opening they need to defund this bill right now.
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Perhaps they should have read it before they signed it! ha!
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Thank God for sanity and reasonable prudunt thinking by the judge.
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Amen brother!
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I agree with you Steve, why didn’t the judge top his ruling with the cherry by issuing an injunction against it. It makes no sense to me. My guess is that the SCOTUS will find the individual mandate unconstitutional and once this happens the Obamacare house of cards with come crashing down.
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I agree with you and John. Makes no sense. I have a questions though. If Obama keeps going forward, and say I chose not to buy it or whatever, would this ruling support my position to refuse Obamacare if I were fined and then took it to court?
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I think it would support your decision but if the Supreme Court reverses this decision I would say you would be owing the IRS quite a bit of money once the late penalties are applied. You would be better off complying with the law until it is officially dead.
That is ust my opinion, I have no expertise on the law.
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That is what I think will happen also, but I still don’t understand why there was no inunction included in this ruling. How can a judge a law that he has deemed unconstitutional be allowed to continue?
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The judge didn’t have to give an injunction. Declaring it unConstitutional IS an injunction. The law is null and void until or unless the USSC reinstates it.
However, this is causing a lot of misunderstanding. The Obama Administration is pretty much ignoring the ruling. The AG’s from the 26 states need to go back to Judge Vinson and have him clarify the fact that the law is void.
The Obama Administration is pretty much doing what it did when the court overturned his mandate against drilling after the BP disaster. He just ignored the ruling.
This time, this approach is going to seriously piss off the wrong people.
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Thanks for clearing that up, I have now heard this from a number of places and it appears true that no injunction was needed but because the udge didn’t specifically mention an injunction the president is going to ignore the ruling. Somebody has got to step in and stop the president from ignoring this ruling.
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It will go to the Supremes.
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Bravo to Judge Vinson for doing his job and recognizing just how far past the boundaries of the Constitution this law went. The most ironic thing about his decision is his usage of Barack Obama’s own words to help explain his reasoning. That is more than fitting.
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The judge using Barack Obama’s words against him make this victory a little sweeter.
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I’ve been reading this new blog called insurrection and I think we have our answer to the question of why no injunction was required. Here is the link.
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2011/01/florida-judge-rules-against-obamacare.html
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Thanks for the link, I have now heard from several places why no inunction was needed. This is good news, but now we ust need Obama to stop ignoring the ruling.
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As to how such a development would relate to healthcare services, if you make it too easy for people to access healthcare and too difficult for insurance companies to provide it, you will at the very least, cause a shortage of services. Without the regular balancing mechanism of price and profit, such needing to be free from government interference, you will see those in power assigning the scarce amount of services to selected groups.
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I just heard on Rush that the Florida Insurance Commissioner, newly appointed by Gov. Scott, not only made a flat-out announcement that Judge Vinson’s ruling voided the Obamacare law, but also returned $1 million from the Feds that had been accepted by former Gov. Crist for preliminary setup for compliance. That looks pretty definite… Florida is not going to cooperate if the Administration pretends that the ruling never happened, as they did the overturn of the drilling moritorium.
Something similar happened in Wisconsin, with the state taking a stand that the law was voided.
This is great news. 😀
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Wonderful news! Obama is not going to be able to ignore this ruling for long!
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