Judge Rules Obamacare Unconstitutional

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled today that the recently passed health care law known as "Obamacare" was unconstitutional.

From The Graph

This is an action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief from the“Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” P.L. 111-148, as amended by the “HealthCare and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010,” P.L. 111-152 (collectively the Act). The Act’s mandate that all citizens and legal residents of the United States maintain qualifying healthcare coverage or pay a penalty (individual mandate) is an unprecedented encroachment on the sovereignty of the Plaintiff States and on the rights of their citizens, including members of Plaintiff National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and individual Plaintiffs Mary Brown and Kaj Ahlburg.  By imposing such a mandate, the Act: exceeds the powers of the United States under Article I of the Constitution,particularly the Commerce Clause; violates the Ninth and Tenth Amendments and the Constitution’s principles of federalism and dual sovereignty; and violates the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.  In the alternative, if the penalty required under the Act is a tax, it constitutes an unlawful capitation or direct tax in violation of Article I, sections 2 and 9 of the Constitution.

 The judge also stated:

"While the individual mandate was clearly 'necessary and essential' to the act as drafted, it is not 'necessary and essential' to health care reform in general," he continued. "Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void."

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. VanHollen released the following statement:

Judge Vinson has confirmed the conclusion I reached when this law was enacted.  Congress is free to reform health care, but it must do so in a Constitutional manner. It simply does not have the authority to require people to either purchase health insurance or pay a fine.

Now, we wait to see if the federal government has finally gotten the message.  If they don’t get the message, and decide to appeal the case, as they did when they lost in Virginia, my colleagues and I will continue our fight to defend the Constitution and protect the people of Wisconsin from this unconstitutional law.

Full text of the judge's opinion can be read here.

The embattled law now makes it's way to the Supreme Court.