“There are four key components to Judge Vinson’s opinion: (1) a ruling that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s dramatic expansion of Medicaid is not coercive to the states; (2) that the individual mandate exceeds Congressional powers to regulate interstate commerce; (3) that the individual mandate exceeds Congressional prerogatives to enact laws that are “necessary and proper” for executing its delegated powers; (4) that the individual mandate was essential to the functioning of other critical components of PPACA, and therefore the entire law must be overturned.”
“Judge Vinson’s opinion is laced with quotes from Madison, Hamilton, and the Federalist Papers. And because he believes that the individual mandate exceeds Congress’s commerce power, is without logical limitation, and far exceeds the existing legal boundaries established by Supreme Court precedent — because, Vinson argues, it cannot be reconciled with a limited government of enumerated powers and would remove all limits on federal power — he declared the Act unconstitutional.”
“Today’s ruling vindicates the constitutional first principle that ours is a government of delegated, enumerated, and thus limited powers. Like Judge Hudson in the Virginia case, Judge Vinson recognized that the individual mandate represents an unprecedented and improper incursion beyond those powers: the federal government, under the guise of regulating commerce, cannot require that people engage in economic activity.”
“A week after Republicans announced plans to investigate waivers granted to organizations for healthcare reform provisions, President Obama’s health department made public new waivers for more than more than 500 groups.”
“The problems of the uninsured, including the ‘free rider’ issue, are best addressed through a judicious combination of positive economic incentives, such as tax credits and vouchers for insurance, creative new mechanisms to facilitate coverage (such as automatic enrollment with a right to refuse coverage), and transparency in personal choice and consequences, such as an upfront signed acknowledgement of financial liability for refusing coverage.[18] This policy encourages the adoption of coverage and individual responsibility while not compromising Americans’ personal freedom and responsibility.”
“The problem is that the board is prohibited by law from proposing real structural reforms. The only cuts it is allowed to make would be cutting providers’ reimbursements—including administrative costs and profit margins of Medicare Advantage plans, which are already slated for a payment freeze and future cuts under the new law.”
“Under Section 1334, [Office of Personnel Management]-sponsored plans would compete nationwide against private health insurance. In effect, Congress is creating a special set of plans, governed by special rules, in a closed national ‘market.’ Instead of fair competition with private health plans, Congress is sponsoring the equivalent of a national monopoly. That the OPM-sponsored plans are offered by private contractors (like Medicare contractors) is irrelevant. For consumers, it is hard to imagine anything worse than a government-sponsored ‘private’ monopoly.”
Supporters of the new health care law are quick to tout it as a patients bill of rights. But the real “rights” given through ObamaCare and things like the “right to lose your job” and the “right to lose your insurance plan.”
“Hayek’s most famous insight, about the indispensible informational function of the price mechanism, in his most famous paper, ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’, comes in the course of an argument to the effect that central economic planning boards are bound to fail. On it’s face, it’s hard to agree that the Affordable Care Act does much to incorporate the fundamental Hayekian lesson when one of its key provisions is the establishment of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a sort of central price-setting committee thought by its advocates necessary to contain the runaway cost of the American health-care system.”
“Calling these rules ‘consumer protections’ implies that the people harmed don’t matter, or one has clairvoyance to know that the benefits outweigh the costs.
ObamaCare supporters should call these supposed consumer protections what they are: regulations that can hurt even more than they help.”