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The U.S. Senate voted yesterday on the repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPAC) with the Democratic majority upholding the law. The vote follows a successful repeal in the House led by Republicans. The law is also under fire in the court – it was ruled unconstitutional by a second federal judge this week. Judge Roger Vinson of Florida joined fellow Bush Administration appointee Judge Henry E. Hudson of Virginia in questioning the legislation legitimacy. Although both federal judges highlighted the reform’s individual mandate as exceeding the regulatory authority granted under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, neither judge issued an injunction. Monday’s unconstitutional ruling in Florida, however, diverged from the Virginian dissent, describing the individual mandate as so central to the law as to justify discrediting it in its entirety. Over all, two judges have struck down the law, while two upheld it last year. A total of 26 states filed suit to overturn the reform shortly after its ratification. During last year’s debate, Insurance companies framed the individual mandate, which takes effect in 2014, as the only way to meet the law’s requirement of covering 30 million uninsured Americans without bankrupting the industry. This situation was created, of course, through intense lobbying from the industry to remove a government run public option—from the law. With it’s original function as a mechanism to implement the public option rendered null and void, consumer advocacy groups began to view the individual mandate as a government subsidy to the insurance industry. Meanwhile in California four insurers—Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna, PacifiCare, and Blue Shield—have filed rate increases with the state Department of Insurance, although under current state law the department cannot halt the premium increases.

GUESTS: Karen Davenport, Director of Health Policy at the Center for American Progress; Clark Newhall, Executive director of Health Justice

Find out more at www.americanprogress.org and www.health-justice.org.