First Ever Decision On Constitutionality Of Health Reform Upholds The Law
Today was a victory for the Affordable Care Act. The first court decision to render a verdict on the constitutionality of the landmark health reform package upheld a key portion of law. Earlier today, Judge George Caram Steeh of the Eastern District of Michigan handed down a twenty page order dismissing a challenge to the Act’s minimum coverage provision on the merits:So right-wing zealots that hate the Constitution and the provision to provide for the common good of the nation have been proven wrong again.
“In assessing the scope of Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause,” the court’s task “is a modest one.” The court need not itself determine whether the regulated activities, “taken in the aggregate, substantially affect interstate commerce in fact, but only whether a ‘rational basis’ exists for so concluding.”
There is a rational basis to conclude that, in the aggregate, decisions to forego insurance coverage in preference to attempting to pay for health care out of pocket drive up the cost of insurance. The costs of caring for the uninsured who prove unable to pay are shifted to health care providers, to the insured population in the form of higher premiums, to governments, and to taxpayers. The decision whether to purchase insurance or to attempt to pay for health care out of pocket, is plainly economic. These decisions, viewed in the aggregate, have clear and direct impacts on health care providers, taxpayers, and the insured population who ultimately pay for the care provided to those who go without insurance. These are the economic effects addressed by Congress in enacting the Act and the minimum coverage provision.
Although Judge Steeh is the second judge to dismiss a challenge to health reform — last August, a George W. Bush appointee dismissed a health care case on procedural grounds — he is the first judge to reach the merits of whether or not the law is constitutional. Interestingly, Steeh sided against the Obama Administration’s three procedural arguments that would have effectively delayed any litigation challenging the ACA until 2014, before completely rejecting the plaintiff’s claim that the law is unconstitutional.
This case is far from over, however. Judge Steeh’s decision will appeal to the notoriously right-wing Sixth Circuit, a Court which tried to manipulate federal election law to benefit the Ohio Republican Party in 2008 before being unanimously smacked down by the Supreme Court just three days later. If the Sixth Circuit reverses Judge Steeh, that decision is almost certain to be reviewed by the Supreme Court.
In the end, however, there is no question that Steeh reached the correct decision. Even ultra-conservative Justice Scalia agrees that Congress has sweeping power to regulate “economic activity,” and there is simply no question that health reform will have an enormous economic impact on the health insurance market. In other words, today’s decision will be the first of many affirming the Affordable Care Act.
Connecticut senatorial candidate Linda McMahon - also known as body count McMahon has already proven that like many if not most modern conservatives she believes in the kind of dog eat dog crony capitalism that doesn't care about the average person - Impossible Physical Standards
If you look at the history of professional wrestling (by which I mean, look up some random clips on Youtube) you'll find a high percentage of normal to athletic bodies in the sport right up through the '80s where the comic-book muscleman era began, under the leadership of the McMahons.
The physical standard is now quite difficult or impossible to obtain without the use of steroids. If you don't have the body, you don't get the work. You're an independent contractor, so if you don't get the work, you don't get paid. Once you get the work you have to convince the McMahons to invest in making you a star if you want to make much over the minimum. That means, for most of them, maintaining less than 4% bodyfat on a 260 pound frame, while on the road more than 250 days a year (covering your own travel and lodging expenses, every step of the way).
Also, keep in mind that the guys you're working with, and who you're competing with for TV time, pay per view slots and house show bookings are all using steroids. How else do you keep up with them? This is why we're finding out that everyone in the Tour de France is blood doping - the standard to compete is now so high that it's physically impossible for anyone to do it clean.
The bottom line is, no matter how "out there" the performers are (and let's face it, it's not a typical way to make a living) the McMahons created a product that demands its performers use steroids and they work so hard a schedule in a tough physical job that painkiller use is normal. It doesn't have to be this way.
The McMahons could have chosen to push a different, physical type of performer (the spectacle has been popular before without overblown bodies) and they could have chosen to be like every other form of sport, entertainment or circus and have an off-season so that its performers would have adequate time to rest, heal, and train naturally.
I think that last point should be undeniable. Football players, sitcom actors and circus clowns all get time off, but not these guys. Why? Because the McMahons wanted to run a public company with quarterly earnings goals. People are dying over that decision.
The McMahons see their employees as something t be used -like a wrench or a hammer - to make millions. They don't see their employees as human beings. If McMahon can't she employees as human how can she see the every day working Americans who she would represent as flesh and blood struggling citizens.
