This is the second court to rule that the individual mandate is constitutional under the interstate commerce clause.
"I hold that there is a rational basis for Congress to conclude that individuals' decisions about how and when to pay for health care are activities that in the aggregate substantially affect the interstate health care market," ruled U.S. District Judge Norman Moon, a Clinton appointee. "Nearly everyone will require health care services at some point in their lifetimes, and it is not always possible to predict when one will be afflicted by illness or injury and require care.…
"Far from ‘inactivity,’ by choosing to forgo insurance, Plaintiffs are making an economic decision to try to pay for health care services later, out of pocket, rather than now, through the purchase of insurance. As Congress found, the total incidence of these economic decisions has a substantial impact on the national market for health care by collectively shifting billions of dollars on to other market participants and driving up the prices of insurance policies."
It’s rulings like this that will drum up support for the constitutional amendment, currently being proposed by Virginia, that would allow 2/3 of the states to nullify a federal law.
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