Alert

In light of the ruling in the U.S. District for the Northern District of Florida regarding ObamaCare today, please consider the following statement from U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.):

“Today's ruling in Florida marked the second federal judge to agree with Missourians and deem the individual mandate unconstitutional. We need to replace this law with a commonsense approach that will lower health care costs, improve coverage, and encourage private sector job growth. I look forward to voting to repeal this bill on the Senate floor as soon as possible.” – U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.)

Background on the Senate Republican amicus brief:

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and 31 of his Senate colleagues noted the federal government’s overreach in their amicus brief filed in the Florida case on November 18, 2010:

“Indeed, in more than 200 years of debate as to the proper scope of the Commerce Power, the Supreme Court has never suggested that the Commerce Power allows Congress to impose affirmative obligations on passive individuals, or to punish individuals for failing to purchase a particular product.”

As Congress’s own non-partisan research arm noted, the individual mandate “is a novel issue: whether Congress can use its Commerce Clause authority to require a person to buy a good or a service.”

“If Congress can use the Commerce Power to punish a decision not to engage in a private activity, on the basis that the future consequences of this choice, in the aggregate, would substantially affect interstate commerce, there is seemingly no private decision Congress could not regulate or no activity it could not force private citizens to undertake . . . when, in the aggregate, it concludes that doing so would benefit the economy. For example, this same rationale would allow Congress to punish individuals for not purchasing health-related products, like vitamin supplements, on the ground that their failure to do so would increase health care costs by not ameliorating or preventing health conditions, like osteoporosis.”

And as the Supreme Court has already noted, “Thus, if we were to accept the Government’s arguments, we are hard pressed to posit any activity by an individual that Congress is without power to regulate.”

Background on the upcoming repeal vote in the Senate:

Senate Republican Leader McConnell began the process last week, via Rule 14, of getting the House-passed repeal bill on the Senate Calendar. It is now available for a vote. McConnell assured his Senate colleagues that there will be a vote soon on repealing the health spending bill.

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