Constitutionality of Obama Healthcare Plan

The Obama Healthcare Plan (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or PPACA) is constitutional. The Act’s constitutionality has been challenged in many courts since its enactment. In many of those cases, the District Courts declared the PPACA unconstitutional. The Obama Healthcare Plan will cost many Americans their hard earned money, but precedent establishes that the Act is legal.In the first case to address the issue, the Act was found unconstitutional. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Virginia ruled that the individual mandate clause of the Act could be invalidated through a legal provision known as Section 1501. This provision states that a certain aspect of a law exceeds the constitutional boundaries of Congressional power. The individual mandate of the Healthcare Plan states that every American must have health insurance or they will face a penalty of a $625 or a collection of 2.5% of the individual’s salary, whichever is greater. Henry Hudson, the presiding judge, determined that the government’s defense that the individual mandate was protected under the Commerce Clause was inapplicable in this instance where U.S. citizens were forced to surrender their money to purchase something they may not want. Judge Hudson supported his ruling by explaining how that Act violated established Virginia law which prevented the state government from imposing penalties on individuals who had government commodities forced upon them. Judge Hudson ruled that only the individual mandate portion of the Act was unconstitutional, while the rest was legally acceptable. The second case in which the statute was found unconstitutional involved a coalition of 20 attorney generals, each representing their own state. They convened before Judge Roger Vinson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. Judge Vinson, like Judge Hudson, immediately found fault in the constitutionality of the individual mandate section of the Act. The defense raised the same arguments as in the Virginia suit. The ruling in Florida was much more disheartening for the PPACA. Judge Vinson ruled that the totality of the Healthcare Act was unconstitutional. Other cases were simultaneously fended off by the Obama Administration which in some instances resulted in findings that the Act is constitutional. Still other cases await ruling. Clearly, there is a split in the opinions of the various District Courts. The main question presented is what affect does the Act have on businesses and individuals? Many Americans are primarily opposed to the Act because the government is mandating that they purchase insurance. Businesses oppose the Act because of the increase in cost to their company’s insurance premiums. The Obama administration believes that by requiring multi-billion dollar insurance companies to make insurance affordable for all Americans, the best way for the insurance companies to continue to make money is to pass along the cost to corporate America and the wealthy. In the short term, this seems like a balancing act between the rich and the poor. In reality, the law’s requirement of providing affordable insurance to all Americans will create stability between the consumer and the insurance companies. The poor will have insurance to pay for their health care needs. They will not be dependent on Medicaid or government support. A new level of independence will be result. America will be healthier, and hopefully more jobs will be created. For those who complain that the Act is unconstitutional, they are incorrect. The Obama Healthcare Plan finds its precedent in a statute that dates back nearly eighty years. It is the very statute that the poor now rely on to pay for their healthcare needs. It is the same law that seniors rely on in their retirement. It was also vehemently opposed at the time of its enactment and challenged as unconstitutional. It is the Social Security Act. That ground-breaking statute from the last century set the precedent for the PPACA.The Social Security Act is now one of the longest standing government programs to provide economic safety and stability to those in need. It helped lift the country out of the Great Depression. The fundamental premise for that law is the same premise for this Act, and I am sure it will be cited as precedent by the Obama Administration when defending this Act before the United States Supreme Court.