Has the Florida Judge Stopped the New Health Care Law in Its Tracks?

Reading page 75 of today's Florida opinion it sounds like that is his intent:

(5) Injunction

The last issue to be resolved is the plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief enjoining implementation of the Act, which can be disposed of very quickly.

Injunctive relief is an “extraordinary” [Weinberger v. Romero-Barcelo, 456U.S. 305, 312, 102 S. Ct. 1798, 72 L. Ed. 2d 91 (1982)], and “drastic” remedy [Aaron v. S.E.C., 446 U.S. 680, 703, 100 S. Ct. 1945, 64 L. Ed. 2d 611 (1980)(Burger, J., concurring)]. It is even more so when the party to be enjoined is the federal government, for there is a long-standing presumption “that officials of the Executive Branch will adhere to the law as declared by the court. As a result, the declaratory judgment is the functional equivalent of an injunction.” See Comm. On Judiciary of U.S. House of Representatives v. Miers, 542 F.3d 909, 911 (D.C. Cir.2008); accord Sanchez-Espinoza v. Reagan, 770 F.2d 202, 208 n.8 (D.C. Cir.1985) (“declaratory judgment is, in a context such as this where federal officers are defendants, the practical equivalent of specific relief such as an injunction . . .since it must be presumed that federal officers will adhere to the law as declared by the court”) (Scalia, J.) (emphasis added).

There is no reason to conclude that this presumption should not apply here. Thus, the award of declaratory relief is adequate and separate injunctive relief is not necessary.

Presumably, this applies only in the 26 states that brought the suit. And, of course we should expect the Appeals Court with jurisdiction over this judge to rule on his finding--including the possibility of an emergency order keeping the law in effect during the appeals. But what happens to the early benefits of the law in the meantime?

More uncertainty over the implementation of the new health law.

You can download the complete opinion here.

Now We Have Real Uncertaintly--The Entire Health Law Ruled Unconstitutional!

We all knew the question of the constitutionality over the new health care law was going to be taken up by the Supreme Court.

We knew that because the law inexplicably lacked a severability clause a judge could throw the whole thing out if the individual mandate were to be found unconstitutional and critical to the legislation.

And, we expected this Florida judge would likely rule against the law in some way.

Up to today, we knew that one federal judge had ruled that only the individual mandate was unconstitutional while two other federal judges had upheld the law.

But, I will suggest that the market's uncertainty about implementing the Affordability Act just went up exponentially with a second federal judge ruling against it. And, there is nothing like the whole thing being thrown out in a suit 26 states have brought.

It will likely be 18 months before we get a final Supreme Court ruling--not to mention a number of Appeals Court Rulings in the meantime. Will they uphold the entire law, throw it all out, or just the individual mandate? Four federal judges have put at least those choices on the table.

If you are a provider, do you now spend millions of dollars developing an Accountable Care Organization? Do you build that new building or make a big technology purchase? If you run an insurance company do you make a big strategic bet on exchanges or now marginal markets?

We really don't know any more this afternoon then we knew this morning.

But the uncertainty index just took a huge jump!