More and more I’m sticking closer to my area of expertise in my blog posts. But this will never be a mono-themed blog. My thoughts are too diverse, and I blog what I think.
For a moment or two I thought about Virginia’s ACA challenge. Then my brain started to hurt (law is not for me). So I asked Jim Hufford what he thought. In short, he thinks the ruling to allow the challenge to go forward is a muddle of conflation or conflation of muddles or legal arguing beetles in a poodle paddle battle bottle muddle:
The opinion conflates implementation of the ACA’s Medicaid and insurance-regulation reforms with implementation of the mandate—even though the state has absolutely no role in the latter. It conflates Virginia’s “sovereign” interests with the interests of its citizens. It conflates a single, declaratory enactment of the Virginia legislature with the full breadth of state “sovereign” powers. It conflates the mandate’s minimum coverage requirements with its penalty. And it conflates the scope of the commerce power with that of the taxing power.
For the most part, all that muddling and conflation is achieved obliquely—e.g., through a suggestive quotation from plaintiff’s counsel. And though I’m not worried about the mandate’s long-term prospects, I’d be a lot more comfortable for now if Judge Henry Hudson didn’t seem so comfortable with the arguments of the mandate’s opponents.
No wonder I’m so confused! It’s hard to make sense of the senseless. Now I’ll return something far more straight-forward, like what to do about escalating health care costs (ha!).
