In a key test of President Barack Obama’s health care law, the federal appeals court in Atlanta today will hear arguments on whether the government can require Americans to buy health insurance.
The cornerstone of the law -- the requirement that almost all Americans purchase a minimum level of insurance by 2014 or face a tax penalty -- is at the heart of a lawsuit filed by Georgia and 25 other states. They contend Congress cannot mandate that individuals have coverage in the interest of controlling health-care costs; allowing that, they say, could conceivably lead to extreme results, such as laws requiring people to eat more vegetables and exercise more.
The Obama administration counters that everyone will need medical care sooner or later, and it is unacceptable for those without coverage to have fellow taxpayers pay for their care when the time comes.
The court will hear from high-powered lawyers, but two small business owners in metro Atlanta represent both sides pretty well.
Pat Kaemmerling wants to see the health care overhaul struck down in full. She and her husband own Access Computers in Norcross, a network integration company with seven employees.
“We feel like Obamacare isn’t going to do anything to control costs,” Kaemmerling said. “We need to drop this mandate. ... All we want is the ability to choose -- which is what democracy and free enterprise are all about.”
Julie Haley said she hopes her IT company in Alpharetta can take advantage of the law’s tax credits for small businesses. In 2008, Haley and her husband launched Edge Solutions, which now has two dozen employees.
“This is something that can help create jobs and is a great incentive to do the right thing for your employees,” she said. “I think this law is good for business. I don’t see how you can call this socialism.”
In the case before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in Atlanta and covers three southern states, the Justice Department is appealing a ruling by Senior U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson of Pensacola, Fla. He found the individual mandate unconstitutional and also went further, becoming the only federal judge to throw out the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in its entirety.
In addition to the mandate, the law bars insurers from denying coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions and sets up ways for people without coverage through jobs to buy affordable policies. It also provides drug discounts for some seniors and lets adults under 26 stay on their parents’ plans. Obama signed it into law in March 2010 , and various aspects are phased in over the next few years.
Four other judges have ruled on the individual mandate in separate challenges. Three -- all Democratic appointees -- upheld it. The one who struck it down is, like Vinson, a Republican appointee.
The 11th Circuit will be the third appeals court in recent weeks to consider the matter . If the U.S. Supreme Court takes a case, as many expect, it could pick any of the challenges or consolidate them.
Obama is sending the government’s top lawyer, acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal, to argue at today’s hearing .
Paul Clement, solicitor general under President George W. Bush, will argue for the states, which are joined by the National Federation of Independent Business and two individual plaintiffs -- a small business owner and a retiree.
The three judges hearing the case, selected at random from court’s 10 judges, are evenly split with regard to their political appointments.
Chief Judge Joel Dubina, of Montgomery, was nominated in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush and is a consistently conservative vote on the court. His daughter, U.S. Rep. Martha Roby, R-Ala., supported an unsuccessful attempt to repeal the health care law.
Judges Frank Hull, of Atlanta, and Stanley Marcus, of Miami, were put on the court by President Bill Clinton in 1997. But President Ronald Reagan appointed Marcus to the U.S. District Court in 1985. Hull and Marcus often align themselves with members of the court’s conservative wing.
The legal focus of the health care case is the U.S. Constitution’s 16-word Commerce Clause . It authorizes Congress “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.”
Vinson, the Florida judge who struck down the law, said the clause empowers Congress to regulate the “activity” of those engaged in commerce, not the “inactivity” of people who choose not to engage in it -- in this case by a failure to buy insurance. “Never before has Congress required that everyone buy a product from a private company (essentially for life) just for being alive and residing in the United States,” he wrote.
The Obama administration argues that Congress can regulate the conduct of participants in the health care market even when they are currently “inactive,” and that the minimum coverage provision regulates how much those participants must pay -- activity that is economic in nature and part of commerce .
Supreme Court precedents addressing the Commerce Clause “are ambiguous enough and opaque enough, so a judge acting in good faith could rule either way on the validity of the individual mandate,” Eric Segall, a Georgia State University law professor, said. “What’s going to decide these cases are personal values, politics, subjectivity and taste -- not logic.”
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