I am not a lawyer, nor am I in danger of becoming one, so there are aspects of this story I do not claim to understand; however, I am posting it because I think it is important.
Yesterday at National Review Online's healthcare blog, John R. Graham posted an article about the impact of two recent decisions in Massachusetts regarding gay marriage on the healthcare debate. Huh?
According to the article:
"In the first case, concerning benefits of federal employees, Judge Tauro decided that DOMA was unconstitutional on the grounds that it had no rational basis, and that it violated the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Therefore, the federal government's denying benefits to homosexual employees' partners was invalid."
"In the second case, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts alleged that DOMA invaded its power to define marriage, because it conditioned the transfer of federal funds to the Commonwealth on a particular definition of marriage. (The examples were federal funding of MassHealth, the Commonwealth's Medicaid program, and veterans' cemeteries owned by the Commonwealth.) Furthermore, the Commonwealth asserted that the U.S. imposed an undue administrative burden on its personnel policies, because the Commonwealth recognized homosexual couples as married but had to deduct their Social Security and Medicare taxes as single persons. In this case, Judge Tauro decided that DOMA violated the equal-protection clause, as well as the Tenth Amendment."
This is getting interesting. This is the equivalent of striking down the Arizona immigration law while letting the sanctuary cities stand. (At the moment that is actually true!) The argument being made in Massachusetts is that because there is not an enumerated power in the Constitution to define marriage, the states have control of marriage--not the federal government. As far as I know, there is not an enumerated power in the Constitution to force people to buy health insurance. Hmmm.
The article concludes:
"Judge Tauro found that state law trumps federal law even in cases of benefits to federal employees or federal funding of state benefits. Imagine if a state could overturn Obamacare's mandate to buy health insurance, but keep the federal subsidies for the health-insurance exchanges! That would shake things up.
"After that? Repeal and replace."
I have no idea how this will turn out, but it is ironic that a judge defending gay marriage may provide the basis for lawsuits by the states against Obamacare.
Leave a comment