Governor Scott Starts Returning Federal Health Care Money!

For those of you looking for a silver lining in Judge Vinson's recent health care ruling, here you go:

In the wake of U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson's ruling that the federal health care legislation is unconstitutional, Florida insurance commissioner Kevin McCarty returned a $1 million federal grant awarded to the state to assist with reforms. The money would have paid for a system to provide information to consumers on the rates of large-group insurers.

"The purpose of this letter is to inform you that after deliberate consideration, I hereby rescind the acceptance of the above-referenced $1 million rate review grant, which occurred in a letter to you dated September 15, 2010. No drawdown of any of the $1 million will occur," McCarty wrote in a letter to the director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Center for Consumer Information and Oversight. 

This is pathetic.

The court's ruling was vague as to enforcement, perhaps intentionally so.  

And it's obviously an issue in legal flux.

Why not wait for the dust to settle before you start returning monies provided pursuant to a federal statute?

This feels like cheap political theatrics at the expense of underinsured Florida consumers.

Oh hail this is way too depressing for a Friday afternoon, but I have to follow my muse, peoples (I'm paraphrasing Woody....)

Let me get some windsurfing in and see what it does to improve things, and I'll check back in later.

YEAH -- Obamacare Ruled Unconstitutional!!

Ok kids, here is Judge Vinson's 78 page order finding that whole Obamacare thing a bad nightmare, much like the last season of Dallas:

It would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congress can regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause. If it has the power to compel an otherwise passive individual into a commercial transaction with a third party merely by asserting --- as was done in the Act --- that compelling the actual transaction is itself “commercial and economic in nature, and substantially affects interstate commerce” [see Act § 1501(a)(1)], it is not hyperbolizing to suggest that Congress could do almost anything it wanted. 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. If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain for it would be “difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power” [Lopez, supra, 514 U.S. at 564], and we would have a Constitution in name only. Surely this is not what the Founding Fathers could have intended.

 Ok, I'm really digging the explicit Tea Party reference.

I stopped caring about the Commerce Clause when I left law school, so I won't pretend to be a sudden expert on it now.

And I'm still analyzing the opinion.

However, on first blush, I think the Judge has written a thoughtful, comprehensive order, one that draws deeply on history and context and which attempts in good faith to tackle the parties' arguments head-on.

This is exactly what a district judge should do, regardless of how one may feel about the outcome.

Say what you want about Judge Vinson, but this comports with my personal experience with him.  He is straightforward and intelligent, tells you exactly what he thinks and where he is coming from, and tries to engage you on the merits without excessive rancor or inflated "judge-itis."