Judge strikes down healthcare reform law

The 26 state suit against B.O.’s version of a National Health Service prevails in it’s initial court test presumably on the way to a SCOTUS hearing (sooner or later).

A federal judge in Florida struck down President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare overhaul as unconstitutional on Monday in the biggest legal challenge yet to federal authority to enact the law.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled that the reform law’s so-called individual mandate went too far in requiring that Americans start buying health insurance in 2014 or pay a penalty.

“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.”

Referring to a key provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Vinson sided with governors and attorneys general from 26 U.S. states, almost all of whom are Republicans, in declaring the Obama healthcare reform unconstitutional.

What makes this even sweeter is the fact that the decision was based to some extent on B.O.’s own comments. Hoist on his own petard!

Judge uses Obama’s words against him

In ruling against President Obama‘s health care law, federal Judge Roger Vinson used Mr. Obama‘s own position from the 2008 campaign against him, when the then-Illinois senator argued there were other ways to achieve reform short of requiring every American to purchase insurance.

“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,’” Judge Vinson wrote in a footnote toward the end of his 78-page ruling Monday.

Once the principle of forcing behavior (whether buying health insurance, or anything else) is established, there is, of necessity no remaining legal restraint on the power of the state to compel ANY behavior in any other areas that attract the attention of our would-be progressive masters.  Perhaps, for example, to satisfy the 1st Lady’s concern for proper nutrition there could be a federal law mandating that everyone eat their vegetables, or that pedestrians must wear crash-helmets for their own safety, or whatever else the nanny-state advocates can dream up to protect us from ourselves.

This sort of crap is NOT the proper role of  our Constitutional government.