South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley joins Fingers Malloy and Teri Christoph to discuss women in politics, Obamacare and illegal immigration.

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ObamaCare has been repealed in the House,  a federal judge just threw out the law from the Florida district on Monday because 26 states are clogging it up in court….so the tea party has achieved maximum gridlock on national health care.  That’s a good thing!

Still, REPEAL of the law is necessary, because Judge Roger Vinson’s ruling could be put on hold by an appellate court, which would allow the government to keep spending money building the bureauracy while the case winds up to the Supremes.

Numbers-wise, obviously, the GOP doesn’t have it in the Senate……unless Democrats cross over.  Some of those Democrats are going to be in tight re-election campaigns so are they wobbling??

Senate Republicans put pedal to metal today.  An amendment to repeal Obamacare has been cut and pasted in the Federal Aviation Administration budget.   Facebook reader Jessica Singh has the text:

SA 3. Mr. JOHANNS submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 223, to modernize the air traffic control system, improve the safety, reliability, and availability of transportation by air in the United States, provide modernization of the air traffic control system, reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

    At the appropriate place, insert the following:

   SEC. __X. REPEAL OF EXPANSION OF INFORMATION REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.

    (a) In General.–Section 9006 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the amendments made thereby, are hereby repealed; and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 shall be applied as if such section, and amendments, had never been enacted.

    (b) Rescission of Unspent Federal Funds to Offset Loss in Revenues.–

    (1) IN GENERAL.–Notwithstanding any other provision of law, of all available unobligated funds, $39,000,000,000 in appropriated discretionary funds are hereby rescinded.

    (2) IMPLEMENTATION.–The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall determine and identify from which appropriation accounts the rescission under paragraph (1) shall apply and the amount of such rescission that shall apply to each such account. Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall submit a report to the Secretary of the Treasury and Congress of the accounts and amounts determined and identified for rescission under the preceding sentence.

    (3) EXCEPTION.–This subsection shall not apply to the unobligated funds of the Department of Defense or the Department of Veterans Affairs.

There are however, multiple things going on at many levels.  Here are a few from The Hill:

Democrats will likely use a maneuver that would force the GOP to round up an impossible 60 votes to repeal the reform law, meaning that 13 Democrats would have to vote with Republicans. When asked if his entire caucus would oppose the repeal measure, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Tuesday, “We’ll wait and see.” But Senate Democrats say they’re ready to defeat the repeal effort. 

The Senate will also vote on an amendment to strike down the reform law’s unpopular IRS filing requirement. Expect that measure to have significant bipartisan support after President Obama gave his endorsement to repealing the so-called 1099 requirement.

GOP senators launch new reform law attack: Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) introduced a bill that allows states to opt out of the most important aspects of the reform law, including the individual mandate, expansion of Medicaid and employer coverage requirements. If enough states back out of the individual mandate, Graham thinks the reform law will be rendered useless and Congress would have to go back to the drawing board.

[…]

Despite the Florida ruling, health companies are pushing ahead with plans to implement the reform law, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The White House compiles comments from legal experts criticizing the Florida decision.

Lawmakers started receiving their health benefits on Tuesday, The New York Times reports.  

In a move jabbing the individual mandate, Republican lawmakers in the South Dakota state legislature want to force individuals over the age of 21 to buy a gun, Raw Story reports.

The Supreme Court battle over healthcare reform may boil down to how Justice Kennedy rules, USA Today reports. 

GOP presidential candidates hailed the Florida ruling, the Associated Press reports. 

New York’s governor proposed nearly $1 billion in Medicaid cuts, CNN Money reports. 

[…]

Healthcare reform supporters have begun to seek alternatives to the unpopular individual mandate. 

The Florida ruling boosts Arizona’s case for a Medicaid waiver, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) argues.  

 UPDATE: February 2, 2011:

Vote to repeal entire Obama Care:  47-51 along party lines.     It’s okay.  Keep passing it and keep voting it EACH MONTH.  Keep the Democratic Senators on the record about this.  This is a LOSER for some of them.

Here’s a good news summary from Kaiser:

Senate Republicans failed to muster enough votes to repeal the health law. But a vote to delete a small, revenue-raising provision of the sweeping law did pass, in a bipartisan vote.

The Hill: “The Senate on Wednesday voted down a repeal of President Obama’s healthcare law in a 47-51 party-line vote. … Republicans have vowed to carry the fight forward, saying they will seek to de-fund the law as it is implemented. The GOP also has promised Wednesday’s repeal vote will not be the last in this Congress” (Pecquet, 2/2).

The Associated Press: “Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the vote marked an opportunity for Democrats who voted for the bill last year ‘to listen to those who have desperately been trying to get your attention. To say, yes, maybe my vote for this bill was a mistake, and that we can do better,’ McConnell said. … Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the Republican repeal movement would ‘take away a child’s right to get health insurance and instead give insurance companies the right to use asthma or diabetes as an excuse to take away that care’” (Espo, 2/2).  

KHN has video excerpts of the debate (2/2).

Reuters: The Senate voted on the measure “just two days after a federal judge struck down the year-old law as unconstitutional, a ruling that the Obama administration promptly announced it would appeal. The Republican-led House of Representatives, in keeping a campaign vow, voted to repeal the healthcare law last month. Senate rejection of repeal means the embattled law’s fate will be decided by court challenges and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court, a process that could extend into next year” (Smith and Ferraro, 2/2).

The Washington Post: “Wednesday’s amendments are the first in the Senate dealing with health care reform, but they likely won’t be the last. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who on Tuesday introduced legislation with Sen. John Barasso (R-Wyo.) that would allow states to opt out of provisions of the health care law, has signaled that Republicans may offer more health-care-related amendments. … Earlier Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held its first-ever hearing on the constitutionality of the health-care overhaul” (Sonmez, 2/2).

The Hill: “On their first try, Senators easily approved on Wednesday an amendment the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization legislation to repeal the onerous 1099 provision included in the healthcare law. The Senate approved, on a 81-17 vote, a motion to waive the point of order against the amendment offered by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) to eliminate the requirement that businesses must file the forms with the IRS for purchases of $600 or more” (Needham, 2/2).

Update:   Warner Todd Huston says  so-called “Blue Dog” or conservative Democrats who campaigned AGAINST Obamacare voted FOR it….the GOP had NO defectors:

[Minority Sen. Mitch] McConnell (R- Ky.) did not likely expect his measure to pass, to be sure. His aim was meant at the very least to put everyone in the Senate on record as to where they stood on Obamacare. This isn’t the last word on the debate, either, as Republican Senator John Cornyn (Texas) vowed that this fight was not nearly over.

Within minutes after the vote, on the GOP’s Senate Twitter feed, Cornyn talked of the battle to come. “These are the first steps in a long road that will culminate in 2012 where we will continue to expose the flaws in this bill,” he said.

Mitch McConnell agreed posting, “We think this is just the beginning. This issue is still ahead of us. We will go back at it in a variety of ways.”

This vote proves several things. It proves that despite two years of millions of Americans voicing their disgust of Obamacare and despite the worst drubbing in an election for decades, the Democrats intend to die on the Obamacare hill. With every single Democrat voting against the repeal measure we now see that the Democrats are standing foursquare behind this socialist-like healthcare policy.

This vote also shows that there is no such thing as a “moderate” or a “conservative” Democrat. They may run for election pretending at being a center left politician, like Joe Manchin did, but they will vote like a hard-left, Europeanesque social democrat once in office. This vote once again proves that there is no such thing as a Blue Dog or moderate Democrat.

George Scoville of the CATO Institute sends along these reviews of yesterday’s watershed ruling by U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson in Pensacola, Florida to overturn the ObamaCare law.

[(see the judge’s 78 page ruling here.)             (see previous story on UNCOVERAGE.net)

Here are excerpts and links to legal commentary from:  Vice President for legal affairs Roger Pilon, senior fellow in Constitutional studies Ilya Shapiro, and director of health policy studies Michael F. Cannon:

ObamaCare Goes Down (Pilon)

The core of the opinion, as many of us have long argued, is whether Congress, under its power to regulate interstate commerce, can regulate “inactivity” by requiring individuals to buy health insurance or be fined. It cannot, Vinson ruled, citing a long line of opinions, legal and political, starting with James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution.

Moreover, because Obamacare contains no severability clause, the entire act must fall. Finally, because this is a declaratory judgment, further implementation of the act is enjoined, so a separate injunction is not needed. It’s a new day.

Health Care Ruling a Victory for Federalism and Individual Liberty (Shapiro)

Like Judge Hudson in the Virginia case, Judge Vinson recognized that the individual mandate represents an unprecedented and improper incursion beyond those powers: the federal government, under the guise of regulating commerce, cannot require that people engage in economic activity…. And so today’s ruling, in a lawsuit that now has 26 states as plaintiffs — with two others challenging the health care “reform” separately — represents the latest and most significant victory for federalism and individual liberty. This will not end until the Supreme Court has its say, but the tide is clearly running in freedom’s favor.

Florida Ruling Requires Government to Stop Implementing Obamacare (Shapiro)

In short, if I read the opinion (plus this final judgment) correctly — quite apart from both the lofty philosophical principles I applaud Judge Vinson for adopting and the nitty-gritty technical details of his individual mandate analysis — Obamacare is dead in its tracks.  Now, Judge Vinson himself or the Eleventh Circuit (or even the Supreme Court) may issue an emergency stay of this or any other part of the ruling, but as of right now, the federal government must stop implementing Obamacare.

ObamaCare Falls (Cannon)

…it appears that the Obama administration must seek intervention from a higher court if it wants to keep implementing ObamaCare.  Even though Vinson declined to issue an injunction forbidding the administration to implement the law, he did so because of:

a long-standing presumption “that officials of the Executive Branch will adhere to the law as declared by the court. As a result, the declaratory judgment is the functional equivalent of an injunction”…”declaratory judgment is, in a context such as this where federal officers are defendants, the practical equivalent of specific relief such as an injunction”…Thus, the award of declaratory relief is adequate and separate injunctive relief is not necessary.

In other words, absent intervention from a higher court, HHS must now sit on its hands.

Judge Vinson’s Greatest Hits (Shapiro)

No higher courts are bound but they are influenced.  Judges, like anyone else, don’t want to reinvent the wheel where they don’t have to.  So the circuit courts and even the Supremes will say all this in their own words but don’t for a second think they ain’t payin’ attention.  I can’t cite you statistics about justices being influenced by district (or even circuit) court opinions, but it would be laughable to think that the outcome before the Court would be the same regardless of how the decisions on the merits before several thoughtful district judges went.

This last piece has several excerpts of the 78-page opinion that Ilya has picked out to analyze, and what their implications will be in policy.