Challenging the Obama Health Care Legislation - Research Paper Example

Challenging the Obama Health Care Legislation The case of Florida v. United States Department of Health and Human Service legally questioned the federal healthcare reform law. The petitioners question the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) rooted in its addition of the directive on individual health insurance, proclaiming that Congress goes outside its power by presiding over the governmental plans of the petitioning states and the budgetary procedure, thus compelling them to take the entire liability of the new Act’s unreasonable costs (Bandow 2011). Petitioners assert the federal government does not possess any power under the Constitution’s Article 1, Section 8-- the Commerce Clause on the Taxing and Spending Clause. Moreover, the petitioners claim that the new Act infringes the Tenth Amendment, emphasizing that a directive that coerces people to either get a health insurance or be penalized is undemocratic and unlawful (Bandow 2011). The Congress (2010) has once declared: “By most measures, we have the best medical care system in the world” (p. 32). Yet, there are still major problems and critical issue. A significant portion of the population does not have insurance and costs are continuously increasing. Failure to get a health insurance can prevent one from gaining access to preventative care. The uninsured is given treatment when s/he becomes sick, as recognized by the defendants, since health care in the United States is commonly given because of incapacity to afford medical expenses or acquire a health insurance. Yet, the acquired costs to provide medical services to the uninsured are at times remain unpaid. The costs of unpaid health care services are transferred to economic actors in the form of increased premiums and costs, which, consequently, can contribute to the continuity of the cycle and further enlarge the uninsured population (Congress 2010). The Congress approved of the PPACA against these conditions. The petitioners challenge a number of the interconnected parts of the PPACA as well. Primarily, the new Act considerably changes and enlarges the Medicaid plan. Medicaid is a joint federal-state initiative established in 1965 that supports federal subsidy to states that decide to offer health care to vulnerable and poor populations (Congress 2010). PPACA will expand the numbers of new entrants to the Medicaid rosters by widening the initiative to encompass all people under 65 years of age with a specific income percentage of the federal poverty threshold (Health Care Lawsuits 2011). Furthermore, the new Act opens the opportunity for the formation of medical benefit transactions intended to permit start-up or small businesses and individuals to control their purchasing power to acquire viable prices (Bandow 2011). And finally, the new Act obliges that the states give their workers an agreed health insurance coverage minimum level. The petitioners claim that these conditions infringe state autonomy and the Constitution by forcing and controlling the states and denying them their ‘celebrated ability’ to govern their own Medicaid initiatives, medical care, and state machinery (Bandow 2011). The petitioners expect that these and a variety of other conditions in the PPACA will generate massive costs for Florida (Health Care Lawsuits 2011). Basically, the petitioners argue that the legislation is invasive, domineering, and may drain states’ coffers. When Congress was pressing on the agenda of President Obama to take into the public sector decision making in health care, lawmakers paid insignificant attention to the Constitution. In spite of everything, the tenants of Capitol Hill had become comfortable with proposing any laws they wanted (Bandow 2011). As expected, all of the followers of the president and their colleagues sacked the constitutional cases against the Obamacare law. Yet, the supporters of state-owned health care are not happy anymore. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently abolished a fundamental portion of the legislation. This results in a standoff, counteracting a previous resolution by the Sixth Circuit to sustain the sizeable extension of federal authority. A Democratic elect, Judge Frank Hull, knocked over the legislation in the most recent case (Bandow 2011). The resolution apparently will influence U.S. health care. Yet the more fundamental concern is whether there is still any boundary to the influence or power of the federal government. The courts have thrown away constitutional principles aimed at curbing state authority over the years (Bandow 2011). Certainly, the Commerce Clause, which empowers centralized administration of commerce and trade among a number of states, has been believed to mostly engulf Article 1, Section 8 (Congress 2010), which specifies the power of the Congress. The resolutions of the five District Courts up to now have split three-to-two in supporting the legislation. All of these resolutions were petitioned. The Sixth Circuit declared its decision in support of the plan of the president to deal with compliance as though it was action (Bandow 2011). Then recently the Eleventh Circuit declined. After a thorough analysis, the Eleventh Circuit stressed that the most recent power assertion of the Congress is unmatched (Bandow 2011, para 18): Even in the face of a Great Depression, a World War, a Cold War, recessions, oil shocks, inflation, and unemployment, Congress never sought to require the purchase of wheat or war bonds, force a higher savings rate or greater consumption of American goods, or require every American to purchase a more fuel efficient vehicle. Similarly relevant, the authority being asserted through Obamacare is unparalleled. It has been furthered by the mainstream (Bandow 2011, para 19): In sum, the individual mandate is breathtaking in its expansive scope. It regulates those who have not entered the health care market at all. It regulates those who have entered the health care market, but have not entered the insurance market. It is overinclusive in when it regulates: it conflates those who presently use consumer health care with those who will not consume health care for many years into the future. The government’s position amounts to an argument that the mere fact of an individual’s existence substantially affects interstate commerce, and therefore Congress may regulate them at every point of their life. This theory affords no limiting principles in which to confine Congress’s enumerated power. The government creates a great deal of the supposed distinctiveness of the market and the dilemma of the transferring of cost from the uninsured. Nevertheless, popular opinion emphasized that the extended features have no legal importance (Health Care Lawsuits 2011). The constitutional struggle over Obamacare may appear to be another impenetrable court battle. Nevertheless, the result will establish whether individuals keep hold of the liberty to choose their own health care plan. Ultimately, the case will determine whether any major influences or control linger outside the federal machinery. References Bandow, D. “Obama Heads to the Supreme Court” American Spectator (2011): http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13592 Congress. Congressional Record, V. 153, Pt. 10, May 22. 2007 to June 5. United States Congress, 2010. Health Care Lawsuits. “State of Florida v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services” (2011): http://healthcarelawsuits.org/detail.php?c=2171284&t=State-of-Florida-v.-U.S.-Department-of-Health-and-Human-Services Read More