Health Care Ruling Does Not Create Uncertainty, Says White House

WASHINGTON — The White House says it disagrees with a Virginia judge's ruling declaring a key provision of President Barack Obama's health care law unconstitutional. But officials say it does not create uncertainty about the implementation of the law's provisions.

"Our belief is that when all the legal wrangling is done, this is something that will be upheld," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

White House health reform director Nancy-Ann DeParle said that while the Virginia judge ruled against the law, the administration is encouraged by two other federal judges that have upheld the law.

U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson rejected the government's argument that it has the power under the Constitution to require individuals to buy health insurance, a provision that was set to take effect in 2014.

DeParle told The Associated Press that the Justice Department is reviewing Hudson's ruling. The case is expected to ultimately be decided in the Supreme Court.

Gibbs said the requirement is essential to the law's guarantee of coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions. But he said the White House was not surprised by the ruling.

The provision in the legal crosshairs does not take effect until 2014.

Comments

[RRoadrunner]

09:46 AM on 12/14/2010

Health Care? What health care?

Here's another Huff Post on health care.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/13/medicaid-cuts-hurt-at-the_n_796268.html

[Photon55]

09:37 AM on 12/14/2010

Go back to the drawing board and vote in the Public Option. If it is unlawful to require people to buy their own health insurance, then how did social security pass, paying for drivers licenses, starting a phony war in Iraq without the requirement of the Constitution, hiring mercenaries, no bid contracts, tax cuts for the rich, drug company contracts, corporate welfare, foreign aid, school lunches, medicare, etc., etc. Where does "promote the general welfare apply"? If people are going to use the hospitals its either this or "pay as you go" and no free care. The public option should never have been abandoned.

[Sparky Miller]

08:35 AM on 12/14/2010

President Obama needs to be impeached - Now !. - Obama is clearly headed in the wrong direction. Things have gone from Bush "bad" to Obama "worse". I respectfully call on each Congressperson, and Senator to lead this impeachment to it proper conclusion. (Else) the power of the states exercise the recall of said Senator. Furthermore the Federal Reserve needs to be audited, and Homeland Security needs to be deleted.
Sparky Miller
Wellsville, Ohio

[whitewolf]

09:15 AM on 12/14/2010

Or not.

Proclamations of the end of the world do not make it so. Just this morning I looked up . . . the sky was still intact.

"These are hard times, not end times" - Jon Stewart

[Photon55]

09:21 AM on 12/14/2010

Sparky--you area few electrons short of a spark. The one who should have been impeached and imprisoned is Bush/Cheney for criminal negligence in ignoring the many warnings of an attack on 9/11, lieing us into a phony war in Iraq, bungling the mission into Afghanistan and allowing it to fester and creating the policies and programs that led to a second republican depression. Your short diatribe lacks merit and substance other than right wing nonsense intended to escape responsibility and accountability for the mess we are in at home and abroad.

[Cornhusker40]

08:12 AM on 12/14/2010

"Our belief is that when all the legal wrangling is done, this is something that will be upheld,"

Talk about arrogance!!

[golferman]

08:27 AM on 12/14/2010

Oh really, how's that. LMAO

[Reader2323]

09:45 AM on 12/14/2010

Talk about naivete! TWO out of THREE courts have upheld the healthcare bill so far. Surely you don't expect the Administration NOT to think the bill Constitutional.

[Shereese Maynard]

06:59 AM on 12/14/2010

Mark Tullius Cicero, during the last days of the Roman Republic wrote, “Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto ,” or Let the health of the people be the supreme law. While we are not necessarily in our last days, I do believe that health care in this country is still in critical condition. I’ve long held to the belief that America let its best chance for true reform slipped away during the days of the Roosevelt Administration. On Monday, Federal Judge, Henry E. Hudson ruled that the foundation of the proposed health care legislation is unconstitutional. Cuccinelli, a Republican theorizes that while the government can regulate economic activity that substantially affects interstate commerce, the decision not to buy insurance amounts to economic inactivity that is beyond the government's reach (Huffingtonpost.com). The gentleman, if responding to the government’s powers of interstate commerce, is correct. Cuccinelli, may be too quick to make judgments. His application of natural law may not be objective regarding this issue. Public health entities are empowered to enact on public health issues goes back to the basics of utilitarianism. Any law should be crafted to produce the best consequences for the greatest number of people possible. It does not fall under interstate commerce law. I hope the Supreme Court acts swiftly to interpret this latest mess. While 2014 is a long way off for Americans who are currently without health care, it could mean a lifetime of public health setbacks for all Americans if this ruling is upheld.

[lmab]

12:23 AM on 12/14/2010

In the spirit of cooperation....why not just throw out the health care bill and give bigger tax breaks to the wealthy?

[wdw505]

01:06 AM on 12/14/2010

agreed

[6465billy]

11:20 PM on 12/13/2010

Who believes a word that this WH makes? NOT ME

[firecoalman]

09:12 PM on 12/13/2010

I hope someone mentioned in here that a District Judge's ruling has little more than advisory value; only the Supremes can find an act of congress unconstitutional.

But seriously, do you want the federal government to have the ability to mandate what you should buy & when? Even if you love Obama, do a thought experiment where Bush is back in power & maybe he has some things he'd like you to buy.

[montestruc]

09:42 PM on 12/13/2010

That is flatly untrue. What SCOTUS (or other appeals courts) can do is uphold or overturn the district court's ruling. If the ruling is not appealed, or if upheld on appeal, it stands.

[GabeSmall]

09:49 PM on 12/13/2010

Except in this case there are two other district rulings that contradict this one. Which ruling stands?

[Jack Davies]

08:31 PM on 12/13/2010

THIS is what they mean by Nanny Fascist.

Give it up Obama. This screws the people, plain and simple, just as yr botched tax deal.

[DeaconJoey]

08:09 PM on 12/13/2010

It's going to be upheld because they're going to use the teabagger's favorite welfare programs (social security and medicare) as precedent.

Just a slight proposed cut in the payroll taxes have turned the teabaggers into a frenzy. They don't want to see their favorite entitlement programs de-funded.

For the record, I think the public option has to go. Voluntary public option is the way to go. All the rest is corporate welfare.

[devildog09]

10:09 PM on 12/13/2010

What a ridiculous analogy. If social security was established as a program in which every American was forced to purchase a private "retirement insurance" policy, it would also be found unconstitutional. Taxation and benefits are a different matter

[GabeSmall]

10:23 PM on 12/13/2010

Privatizing SS is a conservative dream that they stopped talking about because the stock market crashed and because they don't want to look like hypocrites as they are trying to kill health care reform.

It will be back on their agenda within a decade. Count on it.

[johnsonc20]

06:50 PM on 12/13/2010

I have to say that I a rooting for the teabaggers to win this case. Forcing people to buy health insurance from greedy private corporations is not the way to get universal health care. The right wing may save us from one of the worst aspects of Obama's health care bill. It would unravel the "compromise" with private medical interests and return us to considering less expensive alternatives.

[LiberalJesus]

07:15 PM on 12/13/2010

Unless you have a way to make the Health Care Industry a not-for-profit enterprise, it's the best solution we've got.

[pausha]

07:19 PM on 12/13/2010

Wouldn't that be a more worthy pursuit than trying to negotiate with the corporate guys? Wasn't health care a non-profit enterprise at some point? I seem to remember someone telling me that in eighties, or thereabout, the insurance companies were non-profit entities.

[DeaconJoey]

08:10 PM on 12/13/2010

The best solution is a voluntary public option to compete with the health care industry.

[montestruc]

10:18 PM on 12/13/2010

A better way to fix health care is to fix the underlying problems. These are the laws against competition in medical matters, (it is now illegal to advertise medical services especially prices outside of a few narrow specialtes). Another is to make it illegal for the medical profession to try to restrict the number of medical professionals (which they do by restricting numbers of medical schools and students both). You fix those two problems, total cost of health care will drop dramatically.

[bchosmer]

06:49 PM on 12/13/2010

What planet is Obama living on? Since when have the five republican SCOTUS justices done anything other than vote the party line? The law is toast. Only hope is that the whole system collapses and we all die quickly.

[imusintheevening]

07:21 PM on 12/13/2010

you are making a number of assumptions

[GabeSmall]

09:53 PM on 12/13/2010

"Since when have the five republican SCOTUS justices done anything other than vote the party line?"

Since often.

[kasinca]

06:25 PM on 12/13/2010

Any judge with financial ties to the firms opposing the bill should have recused themself. The old addage IOKIYAR is such BS.

[AlbanyConservative]

06:20 PM on 12/13/2010

The administration that couldn't figure out that their bill was unconstitutional, says that everything is okay.

You cannot force Americans to buy something from a private company or face fines and jail.
What a precedent this will set.

[kasinca]

06:28 PM on 12/13/2010

The administration? Laws are written by congress usually. This one happened to be written by the healthcare industry. Why don't people like you do something different and read a book instead of repeating absolute non-sense you hear on rightwing bloviating radio and that fake noise network on cable? You are repeating the same garbage opponents spewed when Teddy Roosevelt tried to fix healthcare in 1901. They know how the stoooooooooooooopid people march in lock step, in fear, anger, hate, bigotry and a whole bunch of illiteracy.

[devildog09]

10:18 PM on 12/13/2010

It is disingenuous to suggest that the Obama administration does not share ownership of the health care bill. We all know better

[furby4]

06:36 PM on 12/13/2010

Why do you have objections to the government imposing modest health care premiums on working Americans in order to ensure care for those with pre-existing conditions? Why not lend your voice to fighting the $9000 debt per person those two stupid wars are costing each and every one of you. Makes the health care premiums look like small potatos but you're not howling about that. Strange.

[bchosmer]

06:50 PM on 12/13/2010

Reforming health care is unconstitutional; wiretapping is perfectly fine. Welcome to republican utopia.

[imusintheevening]

07:22 PM on 12/13/2010

I have to fan such simple logic.

[denvergoat]

05:32 PM on 12/13/2010

I will write it again: the same law that compels farmers, especially fruit growers in California (from Scalia I think) , to pay into marketing coops for produce will satisfy the high court as a sufficient precedent to uphold healthcare law. Duh.
denvergoat

[LiberalDemIda]

07:02 PM on 12/13/2010

Let's hope you're right - er - correct.