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Politics The Town Voice Balanced

Legal Debate Abounds on Health Care Reform

By Arlon Staywell RICHMOND April 21, 2011 — The constitutionality of recent health care reform legislation came under what could prove essential review today in an open, public debate sponsored by the University of Richmond's Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Moderated by U of R's School of Law Professor Kevin Walsh the debate featured Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies and Editor-in-Chief of Cato Supreme Court Review, Ilya Shapiro and Virginia District 74 Delegate Joe Morissey.
Often simply called "Obamacare," the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has from before its passage been a source of outrage.
The constitutionality of PPACA has been challenged by more than half the states.
Many already well know a few cases with various approaches to the courts that have had mixed success so far and appeals continue.
The first successful challenge to the constitutionality of PPACA came in the U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Virginia on a case brought by Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.
A second came in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
The Cato Institute served as amicus curiae in Cuccinelli's case. Shapiro brought those arguments to today's debate.
He said it is "not about health care" explaining that today's debate is about a constitutional question of law.
Morissey chose rather to address whether PPACA was "good." He asked that we consider that emergency services would be provided to anyone today whether they have any ability to pay or insurance.
When later pressed how such basic emergency services if coerced from the medical profession compared to the panoply of services for which PPACA coerces funding from the public, Morissey was evasive.
The salient point for Shapiro in the question of constitutionality is the ominous precedent of an overarching, unstoppable government. Without using the word "totalitarian" he described the effects of such governments. In citing current precedents the Cuccinelli case showed the United States has not, before PPACA, gone so far.
In a point by Morissey that PPACA was an "economic activity" which in "aggregate" came under the established scope of congressional powers he did not address any difference between health care and other "economic activities" leaving aside that question of totalitarianism.
The format of the debate did not include the selection of a winner. We all may choose our own. That is, at least for now.
On May 10 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit will arguments in the so far successful Cuccinelli case and another from Virginia.
Of course, despite any ominous precedent opening a door to totalitarianism, PPACA is about health care. We have assembled important medical points for your consideration in Health Care Reform versus Math and Science. Please avail yourselves of this information lest people who have difficulty with fifth grade math waltz off with your life savings.

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