Obamacare Ruled Unconstitutional By Florida Judge On Behalf Of 26 States

Judge strikes down healthcare reform law.   Reuters.

“Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void,” he wrote, “This has been a difficult decision to reach and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications.”

Florida Judge Strikes Down Entirety of Obamacare. NRO.  Great review on the legal points (Commerce Clause, Medicaid expansion under Spending Clause, 9th and 10th amendments, Necessary and Proper Clause, etc.).  For the layman, the most salient one.

It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place.

The detailed dissection of the legal decision is very interesting.  The discussion at large will be interesting to watch unfold.  Especially since 26 states were party to the suit.

…Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Maine, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

No stay was given so Obamacare can proceed in implementation, as the appeals process follows.  Wager: a Supreme Court hearing in the future.   

See:

• http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/31/us-usa-healthcare-ruling-idUSTRE70U6RY20110131
• http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/258484/florida-judge-strikes-down-ientiretyi-obamacare-daniel-foster

Cash In Envelope Improves Government Run Health Care Experience

Who Needs a Sputnik Moment?  AT.  SOTU address writers and speaker may sell hope and change, but reality indicates otherwise.

On the inevitable road of pre-tipping your doctors, nurses, and other health care personnel to facilitate service, when government runs health care.  Discreet cash lubricates delivery of care. 

People in the United States are not used to baksheesh, but if our health care system is in the future run by bureaucrats, the country will soon get the hang of it. It might not start out as the blatant kind of bribes found in the former Soviet bloc, but bribery is sure to soon become the rule in one way or another. In France, for instance, the government bureaucracy recently introduced a €1 franchise on every medical consultation, described as a contribution au remboursement de la dette sociale (contribution to the repayment of the social debt). That was followed by an €18 franchise on “costly” medical procedures. Now the French patients are learning that if they discretely slip an envelope with cash into the pocket of the doctor’s white lab coat hanging in his office, they’ll get more “attention.” And a little extra attention may be vital in a such a government-run health care system, where doctors are obliged by law to see sixty to seventy patients a day.

In 2008, the world’s leading general medical journal, The Lancet, reported that Russia’s current Semashko health care system was still being run by a huge government bureaucracy, that each doctor and nurse still had “his or her little tax,” and that “they all prefer cash in envelopes, of course.” Nurses took 50 rubles (U.S. $2) to empty a bedpan and 200 rubles ($8) to give an enema. Operations started at 300 rubles, but “the sky’s the limit” [3]. The Lancet also noted that “there is a large gap between Russia and other G8 countries in terms of health outcomes. Life expectancy at birth is 66 years for Russians; 16 years less than for people in Japan and 14 years less than the European Union average.”

A little something for your trouble. 

“Can you count them?
Image courtesy of http://www.gifbin.com/981914.

See:

• http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/01/who_needs_a_sputnik_moment.html