Democrats pick up the pace in defense of health insurance mandate
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) joined 21 other Democratic leaders in filing a legal brief in a Michigan court defending the constitutionality of the right of Congress to require every American to buy health insurance.
This case is significant because it's the first out of 26 such cases to reach the appelate court system.
“By filing this brief, Democratic leaders are taking a strong stand against any and all efforts to repeal patients’ rights and put insurance companies back in charge of Americans’ health choices," Pelosi said after the brief was filed last week.
The brief, filed in the Eastern Michigan District Court of Appeals, said the mandate is justifiable because "Congress regularly relies on its enumerated powers to protect American consumers and workers, keep families safe and ensure civil rights."
Democratic attorney generals have said they plan to form a coalition to defend the constitutionality of the law in this and other cases. They represent Oregon, Iowa, California, New York, Vermont, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland and Delaware, according to Politico.
So far, a Virginia judge has ruled the mandate unconstitutional, another Virginia judge and a Michigan judge have ruled it constitutional, and California and Ohio judges have partially or totally dismissed cases. The case has also been denied by the Supreme Court.
Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, a Robert L. Willet Family Professor of Law at the Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Va., and a speaker at the recent National Congress on Health Reform in Washington, D.C., said he believes the Supreme Court is waiting to see how the appeals courts rule before deciding whether to accept the case.
[Why does one Virginia judge think the mandate is unconstitutional?]
Opponents of the ACA argue that if the mandate is successfully refuted in the court system, the law would be made void. Defenders say even if the courts rule the mandate unconstitutional, it would be possible to cut that portion from the law, leaving the law still standing. Jost said he believes the ACA could still be successfully implemented without the mandate, if need be.
Speaking at the National Congress on Health Reform, Christopher Jennings, president of Jennings Policy Strategies and former senior healthcare advisor to President William Clinton, called the lawsuits "a real threat," but not in the long haul.
"If you take away the mandate, you take away aspects of ACA that people care about, including health insurance reforms," he said. If that happens, he said, the broad host of stakeholders supporting the law will push back in its defense.
"As time goes on, it will become the fabric of the system," said Jennings.
"This issue is expected to stay red hot right through the 2012 election," said Henry Aaron, senior fellow of economic studies at the Brookings Institution and chairman of the National Academy of Social Insurance in Washington, D.C.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who filed a case against ACA last year, said, "this is not about healthcare; it's about protecting our liberty."
