THE FATE of President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform could be determined by the US supreme court after a federal judge in Virginia declared one of its central components – the so-called “individual mandate” – unconstitutional.
The Affordable Care Act, which Mr Obama signed on March 23rd, requires virtually all Americans to purchase healthcare insurance by 2014, increasing the number of Americans with medical coverage by 32 million.
But US district judge Henry Hudson in Richmond, Virginia ruled that the mandate exceeds Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.
“At its core, this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance – or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage – it’s about an individual’s right to choose to participate,” Judge Hudson wrote in a 42-page opinion handed down on Monday afternoon.
The Virginia state attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, filed a suit against the Bill on the day Mr Obama signed it.
“This lawsuit is not about health care; it’s about liberty,” Mr Cuccinelli told a press conference.
“Republicans have made a pledge to repeal this job-killing healthcare law, and that’s what we’re going to do,” said John Boehner, who will become speaker of the house next month.
“The individual mandate ... puts the federal government in the business of forcing you to buy health insurance and taxing you if you don’t. This is unwise, unaffordable and, as we have argued all along, unconstitutional.”
Supporters of the individual mandate compare it to the requirement to buy car insurance. But car insurance laws are passed at state level, and no one is obliged to buy a car.
Challenges to the healthcare Bill are deepening the politicisation of the US judiciary. Since October, two district judges appointed by the former Democratic president Bill Clinton upheld the law.
In Michigan, Judge George Steeh said the individual mandate was “essential to the larger regulatory scheme” of healthcare reform. Some 115 miles away from Monday’s ruling, Judge Norman Moon, another Clinton appointee, said Americans who refused to purchase insurance “are making an economic decision to try to pay for healthcare services later, out of pocket”.
Judge Hudson, who was appointed by former president George W Bush, is part owner of a political consulting firm called Campaign Solutions Inc, from which he received thousands of dollars in dividends last year. Campaign Solutions campaigned against the healthcare Bill.
Judge Hudson’s decision could have been worse for Democrats. He declined Mr Cuccinelli’s request that implementation of the Bill be suspended immediately, and he severed the individual mandate from the rest of the Bill, allowing other provisions to take effect.
An even more important case against the Bill, filed by 20 states in Florida, will be heard tomorrow and decided early next year. The plaintiffs argue that the Bill places an unfair financial burden on states by forcing them to expand state-run Medicaid programmes.
Legal experts say it will take about two years for challenges to the Bill to reach the Supreme Court.
If the conservative-leaning court strikes down the individual mandate, it could unravel the rest of the Bill. Insurance companies argue that they cannot afford to insure the seriously ill unless their pool of customers includes young, healthy people.