Gerry Clinchy
05-15-2010, 10:52 AM
NY Times today
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/health/policy/15lawsuit.html?th&emc=th
Several different entities filing suits. I thought that this one defense approach from the DOJ was kind of interesting:
In papers (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/healthchallengegovt.pdf) submitted this week in a Michigan case, the Justice Department vigorously attacked the plaintiffs’ legal standing to challenge an insurance mandate that does not take effect until 2014, and thus has yet to cause any harm.
The cases typically focus on the provision that will require most individuals to obtain commercial or government health insurance (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/health_insurance_and_managed_care/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), a mandate with few precedents in American policy or jurisprudence.
The lawsuits argue that the insurance requirement, by penalizing people for not purchasing a product, represents an unconstitutional extension of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.
The federal government has responded in court filings that an individual decision to not purchase insurance is, in effect, a decision about how to pay for future medical care. Taken in the aggregate, those decisions substantially affect interstate commerce by shifting the cost of covering the uninsured to policy-holders, health care providers and taxpayers, government lawyers maintain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/health/policy/15lawsuit.html?th&emc=th
Several different entities filing suits. I thought that this one defense approach from the DOJ was kind of interesting:
In papers (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/healthchallengegovt.pdf) submitted this week in a Michigan case, the Justice Department vigorously attacked the plaintiffs’ legal standing to challenge an insurance mandate that does not take effect until 2014, and thus has yet to cause any harm.
The cases typically focus on the provision that will require most individuals to obtain commercial or government health insurance (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/health_insurance_and_managed_care/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), a mandate with few precedents in American policy or jurisprudence.
The lawsuits argue that the insurance requirement, by penalizing people for not purchasing a product, represents an unconstitutional extension of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.
The federal government has responded in court filings that an individual decision to not purchase insurance is, in effect, a decision about how to pay for future medical care. Taken in the aggregate, those decisions substantially affect interstate commerce by shifting the cost of covering the uninsured to policy-holders, health care providers and taxpayers, government lawyers maintain.