U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson has struck down the Obama administration’s mandatory health care coverage provision - essentially forcing people to buy health insurance whether they want it or not, much like we have to pay into social security whether we want a government retirement plan or not - as unconstitutional. But the fight isn't over, since everyone knew this would end up in the Supreme Court the minute it was signed.
The Supreme Court is certainly more balanced than it was for most of the 20th century but it will be difficult to say a retirement plan can be mandatory but a health plan cannot.
Regardless, Hudson said that aspect of the health-care legislation goes beyond Congress’s powers to regulate interstate commerce - yet other courts have increasingly granted a wider blanket for federal power no matter how tenuous the link to interstate commerce. Clearly the better approach, and one that won't get Pres. Obama voted out in 2012, is to come up with an alternative more like the original plan and not one that forces healthy people in the early stages of their work careers, when they can least afford it and don't need it, to devote a huge relative chunk of their income beyond the up to 50% in taxes they pay.
