An event in history - how it affects our healthcare PART1:

February 1, 2011

An event in history – how it affects our healthcare PART 1:

On this date, in 1790, the Supreme Court of the United States convened for the first time in our history. The Court is the final arbiter in all legal action. The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land. Before a case arrives at the Supreme Court, it has to go through at least two other court levels first. The Supreme Court is primarily an appellate court. Appellate courts do not try a case all over again. They only determine points of law and whether the law was correctly applied. At least one of the court levels a case goes through, before going to the Supreme Court, is an appellate court. If the law in a certain area is well settled, and has been confirmed by an appellate court, there is generally no point in the Supreme Court hearing such an appeal.

After convening for the first time in 1790, Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) is generally considered to be the first substantial case decided by the Supreme Court. It held that the federal courts could hear individual lawsuits against states. It also firmly established the Supreme Court as final arbiter of all constitutional disputes.

Each year, the Supreme Court is asked to hear approximately five thousand cases. However, because of time and resource constraints and because not all cases are of equal merit, the Court selects only a handful to formally review.

After 211 years of hearing legal disputes and deciding on constitutional issues, the Supreme Court can decide not to hear a case because of the current rulings of the lower courts.

Yesterday U.S. District Judge Robert Vinson (a Reagan era appointee) declared Obamacare unconstitutional the key provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- the so-called "individual mandate" requiring most Americans to buy health insurance by 2014 or face penalties. Vinson also declared unconstitutional the section of the act that withholds Medicare funds from states that refuse to participate.

But, unlike another federal judge who ruled the individual mandate unconstitutional last month, Vinson ruled that the unconstitutionality voided the entire act. Judge Vinson wrote, "I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate. That is not to say, of course, that Congress is without power to address the problems and inequities in our health care system."

"Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications," Vinson wrote, adding, "At a time when there is virtually unanimous agreement that health care reform is needed in this country, it is hard to invalidate and strike down a statute titled "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act."

Though you might read the Commerce Clause and come up with your own thoughts it doesn’t matter. This is the reason why we have judges and a Supreme Court. The language of laws can be confusing, but the language is everything. In this case, the Judge ruled that Congress, in essence, overstepped its authority and tried to force and regulate a certain type of inactivity of the citizen. The government will now say that the ruling voids the essential part of the law. It still doesn’t matter Congress and the government cannot regulate and enforce inactivity of an individual especially to purchase something.

Judge Vinson’s decision is a declaratory judgment that makes the law null and void.

For close to eighty years, there has been an assault on our liberties by the left or the progressive liberal. Since the days of Wilson and the passage of Roosevelt’s New Deal, and Johnson’s Great Society Congress has tried to regulate and enforce its will on the American citizen.

In the last few years, there has been an orchestrated move of liberalism that we have never seen before in this country. Just as there has been a move to the left, the right has also fought back. There is a new push for constitutionalism in this country. Many times in our history, when government has overstepped their boundaries, there have been those who go back to the Constitution for clarity and for resolve. In this case, Congress viewed the Constitution, as many liberals do, as a hindrance in there move to the left and for social justice.

As Congressman Barney Frank (D Massachusetts) said, “The laws we make have nothing to do with the Constitution.” Recently there have been two successful arguments against the health care bill out of four that have now been heard in court and have been ruled upon. With each ruling there has been more of the law rejected as un-constitutional rather than as being constitutional. This might signal to the Supreme Court that the lower court rulings are enough to satisfy the legal aspects of the constitutional challenges that opponents of the bill have argued. The other aspect of the Supreme Court not hearing the case is that 26 States have now joined in the law suits challenging the Constitutionality of Obamacare.

The Court sometimes acts in strange but well fashioned ways to decide on a case by virtue of not hearing the case. This might just become a reality. You heard it here first!

This is not to say that healthcare reform should not move forward. It should and it will. Healthcare reform might just now be the reality of what many people want and that is reform that is within the law and that is good for the nation.

Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives

A foot note: Don’t be surprised if the Senate delves into investigating the decisions of Judge Vinson and determining what is constitutional. This will be bad for the country, there is no precedent and it oversteps their authority. But then we are talking about the left!