7thriv

Brick By Brick: Federal Judge Rules Obamacare Unconstitutional

That was fast. A federal judge in Virginia has declared the individual mandate in Obamacare to be unconstitutional for violating the Commerce Clause. Cue the violins:

A federal judge rejected a key provision of the Obama administration's health care law as unconstitutional Monday, ruling the government cannot require people to buy insurance, in a dispute that both sides agree will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson is the first federal judge to strike down the law, which has been upheld by two other federal judges in Virginia and Michigan. Several other lawsuits have been dismissed and others are pending, including one filed by 20 other states in Florida.
The government had argued the Commerce Clause of the Constitution gives the government the power to require individuals to buy health insurance or face a penalty, a provision due to take effect in 2014.
But Hudson sided with Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli in saying the mandate overstepped the Constitution.
"This case, however, turns on atypical and uncharted applications of constitutional law interwoven with subtle political undercurrents," Hudson wrote. "The outcome of this case has significant public policy implications. And the final word will undoubtedly reside with a higher court."
There was no immediate comment from the White House.

No word from the White House and congressional Democrats, yet. Of course, there will be an appeal. But, I feel comfortable making a few other predictions as well.

I can guarantee that we are going to be hearing all about Judge Hudson now. If he ever owned pharmaceutical stock, we'll know by the time Wolf Blitzer is ready to start reading the news. If any of his relatives or, God forbid, his wife has worked in the medical field, we'll know. If he ever represented an insurance company while in private practice, we'll know. His inevitable Federalist Society membership will gain wide currency. At some point, Chuck Schumer, or some other worthy, will bellow something about Citizen United. I can say the same about Virginia Attorney General Cuccinelli, whose expense accounts are no doubt being prepared for leaking even as we speak.

What we won't hear: a substantive argument why the individual mandate is constitutional despite its never before being used in federal legislation before. No, it's going to all "Tea Parties" and "the embattled middle class" and "bending the cost curve" and so on. For all the claims that constitutional law is filled with inexplicable legal arcana, the fact is that the Commerce Clause is easy to understand: the feds can regulate economic activity that crosses state lines, but it's not enough to simply label something "economic activity" just because there is a market out there. (federal legislation banning guns from schools was overturned on this ground). The high school graduates who make up a majority of the public understand this by instinct, even as progressives and their wards try to distract people from profound constitutional questions with sob stories about people wearing their dead sister's dentures.

This is obviously something that can only be resolved by the US Supreme Court, which will probably have to overturn some of the New Deal-era court rulings (especially Wickard v Filburn, the Roe v Wade of Commerce Clause jurisprudence) that have provided the legal framework for much of the American welfare state. Stay tuned.

Shocking News: California Health Insurance Companies Raise Rates To Comply With Government Mandates

The San Francisco Chronicle ran a front-page, above-the-fold story the other day about a shocking new phenomenon: California insurance companies are raising health insurance premiums (some for the second time this year) to adjust for changes mandated by Obamacare and some new state laws. Liberals, poli-sci majors, and community organizers are baffled as to how this could have happened.

Some health insurers are bumping up rates yet again to reflect changes mandated by the new federal health overhaul law as well as state reforms that will go into effect Jan. 1.
Blue Shield of California, for example, has sent letters informing customers with individual policies that their premiums will go up in the low single digits because of the federal law.
Some of those same policyholders also could see their rates go up as much as an additional 17.7 percent to account for a new state law that will prohibit insurers from charging women more for insurance than men.
For consumers, many of whom already have been hit this year with hefty premium increases to accommodate higher medical costs, the additional raise attributed to health reform will further strain their budgets.

Gee, ya think?

California, which can never seem to leave well enough in the quest for progress and equality, passed a law last year forbidding insurance company acturialists from taking into account gender in setting premiums. Women, you see, (and might expect) tend to use more health care services than men. But, we wouldn't want women to have to pay more! The Chronicle tries to explain this away:

While women tend to use more services in their younger years, the difference often evens out as people age.

Well, that settles that. Naturally, staff writer Victoria Colliver does not cite anybody or anything to support this. I guess it's one of those bits of information that "everyone" knows.

If you don't mind my making the personal political for a second, I have received a notice of premium increase from Kaiser. My monthly premiums (for just my daughter and me) have gone up about 15%, with Kaiser gallantly crediting Obamacare and the "gender parity" law for much of the increase. That's a real kick in the wallet, and really makes you start to wonder if paying monthly premiums in the amount of hundreds of dollars is really worth it, especially when the Free Will budget is already straining from just my rent and student loans. I would imagine I am not unique in feeling this way. Hey, liberals and Obama fanboys, riddle me this? Where's that utopia you guys were talking about?

I am not gonna sit around and act shocked by all this. It was easy to predict that Obamacare would result in increased premiums, not decreases, contrary to what everybody from the President on down said. But, for those "independents" and Blue Dog Democrat types who actually thought health care reform might be a net positive, I have to wonder if this will finally break their habit of looking to Big Government liberalism for succor. If this doesn't cure then of that, nothing will.

Pistol

Apropos of nothing, here's Pete Maravich going through some odd drills with Red Auerbach.

Amazing stuff. Also amazing is the glimpse into the not-too-distant pre-Sportscenter past when the greatest coach of the era was a cigar-chomping wise guy (as opposed to our current era's smug "zen priest"); and the team from New Orleans was called the "Jazz," which made a helluva lot more sense.

We Do Need Some Education: David Gilmour's Son Acts a Right Prat

The new face of today's Revolution!ary Youth: Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour's son, last seen desecrating a monument to British war dead during the recent Tuition Strikes. Dad seems to have made a few phone calls about whether son would enjoy actually paying tuition, as Jr. is now apologizing cravenly:

The son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour issued a public apology Friday for climbing atop of one of Britain's most important war memorials during violent student demonstrations against rising university fees.
Charlie Gilmour, 21, said he was sorry for the "terrible insult" to the thousands who died for the country. Gilmour — a Cambridge University history student — said he did not realize that the monument he climbed was the Cenotaph, which commemorates Britain's war dead.
"I feel nothing but shame," he said. "My intention was not to attack or defile the Cenotaph. Running along with a crowd of people who had just been violently repelled by the police, I got caught up in the spirit of the moment."

Yes, Gilmour is a "rock guitarist." He is also an incredibly wealthy man whose band, I'll bet, has made more money than Michael Jackson and Madonna put together. Charlie is practically the stereotype of the child of privilege playing at Revolution! to the applause of the media and his fellow students. At least he was man enough to apologize immediately.

UPDATE: just read through the linked article again. This ponce who didn't know he was climbing on a war memorial is a history student. Geez. Even if he's been getting free tuition up to now, he's been ripped off.

Running With Scissors: The Continuing Tax Debate

Conservatives, including the talk radio guys and members of the DeMint/Bachmann caucus, continue to complain about last Monday's tax deal extending the Bush tax rates. I think these are good faith disagreements. An informal survey of my Tea Party friends here in SF (it took 5 minutes) tells me that the extension of unemployment benefits really sticks in their craw, much more so than temporary nature of the tax rate extension. Still, I continue to be unmoved by the cries that "they could have asked for 'permanent' tax cuts!" and "they could have gotten so much more!" Look at it from the perspective of the GOP leadership in Congress:

1. the assignment was to extend the Bush tax rates. Mission accomplished. No one was talking seriously about tax cuts starting 01/01/11.

2. we are still in the fading days of the already infamous 111th Congress. The Democrats have huge majorities in both houses of Congress. Yet, the president bent to Republican demands on tax policy in a way that was more conservative than liberal, regardless of how many times Obama declares the payroll cuts to be "stimulus." If Democrats really cared about the middle class as much as they claim, they could have passed whatever tax plan they wanted. But, they didn't. That's not Mitch McConnell's fault.

4. Yes, Republicans won a historic victory last November. Voters are clearly engaged in matters of tax and spending. But, if you are an old-timer like McConnell or Boehner, you can remember other times when you won major elections and then - when your party made the mere mention of reforming entitlements and cutting spending - those conservative voters mysteriously disappeared, replaced by quailing moderates worried about "partisanship," "racism," and "The Children."

When George W Bush tried to pass social security reform, he did it virtually alone. Where were all the fiscal conservative voters back then? I don't know, but I do remember the Democrats' inevitable demagoguery over "Republicans want grandma to eat dog food." I could say the same about Fannie/Freddie reform, efforts to defund PBS/NPR, closing the Department of Education, etc.

Look at what happened in California. I've been critical of the Governator. He rode into office on a real mandate to shrink California government. Yes, he frittered away his mandate over pointless "negotiations" with state Democrats. But, when the time came in 2005 for the voters to pass some reforms he proposed, all those fiscal conservative voters disappeared. Instead, the airwaves were filled with ads from the nurses union and other public sector unions, all with the same message: Republicans are destroying the state! And it worked! Schwarzenegger's propositions all failed and that was that for reform. Ever since then, he has found applause and good press passing progressive legislation like cap & trade and high speed rail, not tax cuts or free market reforms. And, it's Democrats who have destroyed the state for real, rather than on teevee as the Republicans are always supposed to be doing, but never quite accomplish.

The fact is the the recent volatility in American politics has been due to the voters' continued lurches from right to left and then right again. Voters have shown themselves to be fiscally conservative more in theory than in fact. Maybe the recent explosion in spending and debt has effected a permanent change in voter attitudes, but I feel like we've been here before. As others have noted, the government has been growing steadily since 1932, even during the Reagan years. Yeah, you can blame cowardly politicians, but it's the voters who feed that fear.

Voters may not trust the Republican leadership. But, the leadership may still have reason to not trust voters to be there when the grim business of breaking up the welfare state begins.

The Stupid Party: How Not To Govern From The Right

For all the conservatives complaining about the good-not-great tax deal, I would point out that there are worse ways for Republicans to govern. Exhibit A, as always, is the Governator who - with just three weeks left in his administration - has announced the need to end California's perpetual budget crisis through massive spending cuts. Wow, great timing:

Outgoing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made a last-ditch effort Monday to help close California's budget deficit by proposing deep cuts to social services and prisons, ideas that had been rejected by lawmakers in previous budget negotiations.
The Republican governor on Monday declared a fiscal emergency and called the Legislature into a special session to deal with part of the deficit, which is $25.4 billion over the next 18 months.
He called for spending cuts and other solutions worth $1.9 billion in the current fiscal year, which ends in June, and $7.9 billion more in the next fiscal year, which takes Schwarzenegger's proposal well into the term of Gov.-elect Jerry Brown.
Schwarzenegger was not concerned about overlapping with the incoming Democrat, who takes over Jan. 3.

I think Professor Bainbridge gets this right:

You know the expression about locking the barn door after the horse has bolted? Here's a Star Wars version:
Pulling the fire alarms on Alderaan five minutes after the Death Star shoots.

It's easy to blame Schwarzenegger alone, but he was guided by Republican establishment types like Pete Wilson. Where were these guys during the past three years when the Governator was negotiating "debt & taxes" deals with the legislature?

Democrats at least manage to rally around the cry of "protecting Pat Brown's legacy." Why haven't state Republicans been trying to save Governor Reagan's legacy?