OAKLAND, Calif., Jan. 31, 2011—U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson has ruled that the Obama administration’s health reform (“Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”) is unconstitutional, citing the primary mechanism whereby the bill achieves universal insurance coverage—the individual mandate—as the reason for his decision. “Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications,” Judge Vinson writes.

Independent Institute Research Fellow and constitutional legal scholar William J. Watkins Jr. believes the Florida decision to be the most important to date. The action was brought by 26 states and will likely be the main vehicle for a legal challenge to Obamacare.

“The Commerce Clause will become the fount of unlimited government and no right, liberty or inactivity will be protected from Washington lawmakers,” says Watkins.

Watkins points to key implications in the legal challenge against Obamacare:

• Even the most nationalistic of the Constitution’s framers, such as Alexander Hamilton, never envisioned that Congress could force Americans to buy health insurance.
  
  
• If the individual insurance mandate passes constitutional muster and enters the realm of precedent, then we can safely assume that no right, liberty, or inactivity is protected from Washington lawmakers.

William Watkins has been a featured guest on CBS Radio and Fox News. His articles have appeared in The Washington Examiner, The Christian Science Monitor, The Daily Caller, and many other publications.

To schedule an interview with William Watkins, please contact Lindsay Boyd at (202) 725-7722 (cell) or [email protected].

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