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Florida District Court Refuses to Dismiss Obamacare Challenge

By Timothy Sandefur, guest-blogging

(Timothy Sandefur, guest-blogging)

Judge Roger Vinson of the Northern District of Florida has issued a decision refusing to dismiss the constitutional challenge to the Obama Administration?s health care legislation. You can read the decision here, and more information here. On the Commerce Clause issue, the court said:

The individual mandate applies across the board. People have no choice and there is no way to avoid it. Those who fall under the individual mandate either comply with it, or they are penalized. It is not based on an activity that they make the choice to undertake. Rather, it is based solely on citizenship and on being alive. As the nonpartisan CBO concluded sixteen years ago (when the individual mandate was considered, but not pursued during the 1994 national healthcare reform efforts): ?A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.? Of course, to say that something is ?novel? and ?unprecedented? does not necessarily mean that it is ?unconstitutional? and ?improper.? There may be a first time for anything. But, at this stage of the case, the plaintiffs have most definitely stated a plausible claim with respect to this cause of action.

 I represent an individual in a separate lawsuit challenging the Individual Mandate.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on October 14, 2010 (boomark / email).