WASHINGTON - Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander M. Levin (D-MI) and Health Subcommittee Ranking Member Pete Stark (D-CA), today responded to the ruling by a Republican appointee on a district court in Florida against the health reform law.
Ranking Member Levin: “Over a dozen similar cases have been dismissed or decided in favor of the Affordable Care Act and I am confident that the new law is constitutional. We in Congress must stay focused on continuing to implement a law that has already benefited millions of Americans."
Ranking Member Stark: "I remember when Republicans thought that activist judges shouldn't legislate from the bench. Several other judges across the country have already ruled that the health reform law is constitutional, a viewpoint that will win the day at the end of all this partisan posturing."
Like Judge Hudson's decision, this decision allows implementation of the law to continue. However, in a departure from the Hudson decision, the ruling ignores judicial convention in striking down the entire law based on one provision.
Republican Appointee Judge Vinson joins one other judge who has ruled against the law, as opposed to over a dozen judges who have ruled that the law is constitutional or have dismissed suits against the law on procedural grounds. Historic laws like health reform were challenged in the courts - lower courts ruled that Social Security, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the minimum wage were unconstitutional before eventually being reversed by the Supreme Court.
