Obama reaps victory as judges uphold health law

DAN SEWELL

Asso­ci­ated Press

CINCINNATI — In the first rul­ing by a fed­eral appeals court on Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s health care over­haul, a panel in Cincin­nati handed the admin­is­tra­tion a vic­tory Wednes­day by agree­ing that the gov­ern­ment can require a min­i­mum amount of insur­ance for Americans.

A Republican-appointed judge joined with a Demo­c­ra­tic appointee for the 2–1 major­ity in another mile­stone for Obama’s hotly debated sig­na­ture domes­tic ini­tia­tive — the first time a Repub­li­can fed­eral court appointee has affirmed the mer­its of the law.

The White House and Jus­tice Depart­ment hailed the panel’s affir­ma­tion of an ear­lier rul­ing by a fed­eral court in Michi­gan; oppo­nents of the law said chal­lenges will con­tinue to the U.S. Supreme Court.

At issue is a con­ser­v­a­tive law center’s law­suit argu­ing on behalf of plain­tiffs that poten­tially requir­ing them to buy insur­ance or face penal­ties could sub­ject them to finan­cial hard­ship. The suit warns that the law is too broad and could lead to more fed­eral mandates.

The Thomas More Law Cen­ter, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., argued before the panel that the law was uncon­sti­tu­tional and that Con­gress over­stepped its powers.

The gov­ern­ment coun­tered that the mea­sure was needed for the over­all goal of reduc­ing health care costs and reforms such as pro­tect­ing peo­ple with pre-existing con­di­tions. It said the cov­er­age man­date will help keep the costs of changes from being shifted to house­holds and providers.

White House adviser Stephanie Cut­ter called the rul­ing “another vic­tory” for mil­lions of Amer­i­cans and small busi­nesses ben­e­fit­ing from the overhaul.

“At the end of the day, we are con­fi­dent the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of these land­mark reforms will be upheld,” she said in a statement.

The law cen­ter pre­dicted its case would have a good shot on appeal.

“Clearly our case won’t resolve all the issues, because we don’t raise the state rights issue, but we are the only one that is cur­rently ripe for Supreme Court review that raises the chal­lenge on behalf of an indi­vid­ual,” said David Yerushalmi, an attor­ney for the law center.

The three-judge 6th U.S. Cir­cuit Court of Appeals panel deliv­ered a lengthy opin­ion with dis­agree­ment on some issues, mov­ing unusu­ally quickly in deliv­er­ing its deci­sion less than a month after hear­ing oral arguments.

“Con­gress had a ratio­nal basis for con­clud­ing that the min­i­mum cov­er­age pro­vi­sion is essen­tial to the Afford­able Care Act’s larger reforms to the national mar­kets in health care deliv­ery and health insur­ance,” Judge Boyce F. Mar­tin, appointed by for­mer Pres­i­dent Jimmy Carter, wrote for the majority.

A George W. Bush appointee con­curred; a Ronald Rea­gan appointee who is a U.S. dis­trict judge in Colum­bus sit­ting on the panel dis­agreed. Judges are selected for pan­els through ran­dom draw.

“If the exer­cise of power is allowed and the man­date upheld, it is dif­fi­cult to see what the lim­its on Con­gress’ Com­merce Clause author­ity would be,” warned dis­sent­ing Judge James Gra­ham of Colum­bus. “What aspect of human activ­ity would escape fed­eral power?”

Judge Jef­frey Sut­ton, the Bush appointee, deliv­ered the deci­sive vote, although his opin­ion raised ques­tions and noted the unusual nature of a law directed at some­one who chooses inac­tion, refer­ring to those “who prize that most Amer­i­can of free­doms: to be left alone.”

But the gov­ern­ment argued that telling some­one to buy health insur­ance, some­thing that vir­tu­ally every­one needs and is part of a sweep­ing effort, isn’t the same as order­ing them to buy a car or a vegetable.

“The nov­elty of the indi­vid­ual man­date may indeed sug­gest it is a bridge too far, but it also may offer one more exam­ple of a pol­icy neces­sity giv­ing birth to an inven­tive (and con­sti­tu­tional) con­gres­sional solu­tion,” Sut­ton wrote.

The opin­ion by Sut­ton, a well-respected con­ser­v­a­tive jurist, will be stud­ied closely by other courts, said a law pro­fes­sor at Virginia’s Uni­ver­sity of Richmond.

“His opin­ion is com­pre­hen­sive and cau­tious and care­ful, but I think it comes out to pretty much the same con­clu­sion as Judge Martin’s,” Carl Tobias said in a tele­phone interview.

An attor­ney for Thomas More said the cen­ter expects to appeal. It could ask for the full cir­cuit court to review the case or go on to the U.S. Supreme Court. The 16-seat 6th Cir­cuit has one vacancy.

Among those sup­port­ing the cen­ter in court doc­u­ments in the case — titled Thomas More Law Cen­ter, et al, vs. Barack Hus­sein Obama, et al — were Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates Michelle Bach­mann and Ron Paul and sev­eral other mem­bers of Con­gress includ­ing Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio.

More than 30 legal chal­lenges have been filed over the health care over­haul, some focus­ing on dif­fer­ent issues such as states’ rights. Ear­lier deci­sions at the U.S. dis­trict court level have found Republican-appointed judges oppos­ing and Democrat-appointed judges affirming.

Posted by AP News on Jun 29 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.