Democrats Block Repeal In Clash Over Health Care Mandate

WASHINGTON

Senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee clashed over whether the government can force individuals to buy health insurance, with Senate Democrats ultimately blocking a Republican effort to repeal the health care reform law enacted last year.

Debating the "mandate" issue, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the committee, said that the authority of Congress to act is "well established" in the Constitution, by prior acts of Congress and by long-standing court precedent.

"This act was neither novel nor unprecedented, but rested on the foundation used over the last century to build and secure the social safety net," he said.

He also said that the individual mandate was originally a Republican proposal.

Rep. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking minority member of the panel, fired back saying, "There are many constitutional questions about the individual mandate." He added, "What is clear is that if this law is constitutional, Congress can make Americans buy anything that Congress wants."

Mr. Grassley noted that "the individual mandate is the heart of the bill. As my friend, Senator Baucus, said at the markup: the absence of a requirement of 'a shared responsibility for individuals to buy health insurance guts health care reform.'"

He also warned, "If the Supreme Court should strike down the individual mandate, it is not clear that the rest of the law can survive."

"The individual mandate is the reason that the new law bars insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions and the sponsors made the mandate the basis for nearly every provision of the law," Mr. Grassley said.

The comments of Sen. Leahy, Rep. Grassley and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., a senior member of the committee and a member of the Senate Democratic leadership, were made at a hearing on the issue of the constitutionality of the law.

The hearing was in reaction to a Monday decision by Judge Roger Vinson in federal district court in Pensacola that the law is unconstitutional because it imposes a mandate to buy insurance on people starting in 2014.

In a key part of his decision, he said the mandate is at the heart of the bill, and, therefore, the entire bill is unconstitutional.

In his decision, Judge Vinson compared the law to "a finely crafted watch."

He opined that there were "too many moving parts" for him to "dissect out the proper from the improper and the able-to-stand-alone from the unable-to-stand-alone."

As a result, he issued a declaratory judgment against the entire law and suggested that the Obama administration view it as the "functional equivalent" of an injunction to suspend its implementation.

In his comments, Sen. Durbin sought to reassure the American people about the law, noting that Social Security, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the federal minimum wage ran into trouble in lower courts before they were ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.

"I believe the same will happen with the Affordable Care Act," Sen. Durbin added.

He noted that 12 federal district court judges have dismissed challenges to the law; two have found the law to be constitutional; and two have found the opposite.

"How is it possible that federal judges who not only study the Constitution but swear to uphold it can read its words and draw such different conclusions?" he asked.