Monday, January 24, 2011

Health Care Lawsuit Score: US 2 - VA 1

UPDATE V: Trivia: The first U.S. law that included an individual mandate was the Militia Acts of 1792. What was the second?

Read Forbes, Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance -In 1798.


UPDATE IV: Add Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Wyoming, Wisconsin and Maine to the lawsuit.


UPDATE III: Today it is US v. FL, SC, NE, TX, UT, LA, AL, MI, CO, PA, WA, ID, SD, IN, ND, MS, AZ, NV, GA, and AL. Read the Washington Post, Florida judge to rule on health-care challenge by states.


UPDATE II: "Twenty-four lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordability Act are working their way through federal courts around the country. The cases contest many aspects of the law beyond the one that has drawn the greatest attention: the requirement that most Americans carry health insurance starting in 2014. Most of the suits still are before district court judges, but a few already have been ruled on and are being appealed to federal circuit courts. Legal experts predict that one or more of these cases eventually will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court." Track some of the cases at the Washington Post, Status of legal challenges to Obama health care overhaul.


UPDATE: It's all about the individual mandate. Read the Washington Post, Is the Hudson ruling good news for health reform?, Cutting off your policies to spite your opponents, and A world without an individual mandate.

And what U.S. law required the first individual mandate. Read the Militia Acts of 1792.

A federal judge in Virgina, with a long history in Republi-con politics, has ruled that "Congress went too far by requiring most Americans to obtain insurance, a key provision of the health care overhaul that passed muster in two prior court challenges." Read The New York Times, Health Care Law Ruled Unconstitutional.

To read the opinion, click here. To read some of the other recent court documents, click here.

A Guy Fairy Tale

From an email:

Once upon a time, a Prince asked a beautiful Princess... "Will you marry me?"

The Princess said "NO!"

And the Prince lived happily ever after and rode motorcycles, and went fishing and hunting and played golf, and dated women half his age and drank beer and scotch, and had tons of money in the bank and left the toilet seat up.

The End