Rueters: A judge in Florida Monday became the second U.S. judge to declare President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law unconstitutional, in the biggest legal challenge yet to federal authority to enact the law.
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, ruled that the reform law’s so-called “individual mandate” went too far in requiring that Americans start buying health insurance in 2014 or pay a penalty.
“Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications,” Vinson wrote.
He was referring to a key provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and sided with governors and attorneys general from 26 U.S. states, almost all of whom are Republicans, in declaring it unconstitutional. The issue will likely end up at the U.S. Supreme Court.
The plaintiffs represent more than half the U.S. states, so the Pensacola case has more prominence than two dozen lawsuits filed in federal courts over the healthcare law.
The healthcare overhaul, a cornerstone of Obama’s presidency, aims to expand health insurance to cover millions of uninsured Americans while also curbing costs. Administration officials insist it is constitutional and needed to stem huge projected increases in healthcare costs.
Two other federal judges have rejected challenges to the individual mandate.
But a federal district judge in Richmond, Virginia, last month struck down that central provision of the law in a case in that state, saying it invited an “unbridled exercise of federal police powers.”
The provision is key to the law’s mission of covering more than 30 million uninsured. Officials argue it is only by requiring healthy people to purchase policies that they can help pay for reforms, including a mandate that individuals with pre-existing medical conditions cannot be refused coverage.
(Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Doina Chiacu)
Posted in
UBI NEWS
OGDEN, Utah — The Ogden City Council has passed an
ordinance requiring owners to carry $50,000 in liability insurance if their dogs are determined to be dangerous.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the law was approved 5-2 on Tuesday, despite criticism from pet owners who say it’s too specific in the way it determines whether a dog is dangerous.
The ordinance says that categorization would be for any dog that is impounded at least twice in a 12-month period or acts aggressively without provocation in a fenced area.
Owners would have to register their dog, implant a microchip and use a special colored collar. Liability insurance for the dog would be required.
Last year, the city council considered rules that targeted pit bulls as dangerous. Those did not pass, and the new proposal is not breed-specific.
Posted in
UBI NEWS
By Donna Smith | January 20, 2011
The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would repeal President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare reform law Wednesday in a mostly symbolic move likely to be scuttled in the Senate.
The House voted 245-189 to approve the Republican bill that would scrap the law, which was passed by Congress last year after a bitter debate and signed by Obama when his fellow Democrats still controlled both the House and Senate.
The unified House Republicans were joined by three Democrats in backing the bill, which also needs Senate passage but is unlikely to get it. The Senate remains under Democratic control and is not expected to take up the repeal legislation.
Even if the Senate were to pass the measure, Obama has vowed to veto any effort to repeal the healthcare law, one of his biggest legislative victories.
Republican leaders said they were committed to trying to repeal it in order to honor a campaign pledge that helped them win control of the House and gain seats in the Senate in congressional elections last November.
“Our pledge was to repeal ‘Obamacare,”’ said House Speaker John Boehner, using a derisive term for the law. “Why? Because it is going to increase spending, increase taxes and destroy jobs in America.”
Polls show that Americans are split on the law. An ABC News/Washington Post poll this week found that more Americans now believe it will hurt rather than help the struggling U.S. economy. But the poll also showed that just 18 percent favor full repeal of the law.
Republicans say the law saddles businesses with high costs and complicated regulations. Democrats say the law is an historic move to deliver health insurance to more than 30 million people who currently cannot afford it while also lowering medical costs and providing more consumer protections.
The law will also bar insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said repealing the law would damage the economy. “Given where we are, we must do things that help bolster the recovery, and repealing the Affordable Care Act would be a step in the wrong direction,” he said. [ID:nN19214970]
TONED DOWN DEBATE
A heated debate preceded congressional passage of the law last year. But the tone of the repeal debate in Congress this year was subdued in the aftermath of the Jan. 8 shooting in Tucson of Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who survived but was gravely wounded.
Six other people were killed in the attack that prompted calls for politicians to tone down their rhetoric.
Republicans delayed debate on the bill for a week after Giffords was shot. Lawmakers from both sides largely avoided inflammatory rhetoric.
Boehner Wednesday thanked House members for the ”respectful debate.”
Democrats say the law already is helping millions of people who had been shut or priced out of health insurance.
“Let’s be clear, this law is working,” said Representative Sander Levin, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. “Repealing it would have real-life consequences for millions of Americans.”
While repeal is expected to fail, House Republicans have proposed steps to slow implementation of reforms by cutting funding in a spending bill that will debated in coming weeks.
Some, but not all, of the provisions in the law have gone into effect. They include allowing young people to stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26, improving drug savings for the elderly on the government’s Medicare insurance program, and creating temporary high-risk pools to help people with medical conditions obtain health coverage.
Other elements such as the creation of insurance exchanges to help individuals and small business compare and purchase plans do not go into effect until 2014.
Federal courts have issued differing positions on whether whether a mandate that Americans purchase health insurance is permissible under the U.S. Constitution. The question is expected to wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Posted in
UBI NEWS
Legal News Reporter: Nicole Howley
Salt Lake City, UT—A workplace accident at a Bluffdale trucking company ripped a mechanics arm off, when his clothing became caught in a truck’s power takeoff shaft. The fatal accident occurred at Ron Osborn Trucking, at 14703 S. 1000 West, at around 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 18, 2010, as reported by The Salt Lake Tribune.
Bluffdale Fire officials reported that the 36-year-old mechanic, who was identified by the company’s owners as Jason Webb, was working on the truck when his clothing became entangled in the truck’s power takeoff shaft. “The PTO was spinning and he had all the guards taken off,” Bluffdale Fire Capt. Jarred Roberts said. “It caught his clothing in and spun him completely through.”
The mechanic’s arm was ripped off and he suffered massive head trauma, as well as a lacerated liver. He was flown to University Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead 12 hours later.
Ron Osborne, the company’s owner, says Webb was pumping fuel from one truck to another, as his last task of the day, which he “did on an almost daily basis.” It is unknown why he was underneath the truck, near the spinning shaft; he would have no reason for being underneath the truck.
A full investigation is underway.
Posted in
UBI NEWS Tags:
accident,
injury,
Utah,
workplace