I've written a great deal on the subject of health care reform in the United States, so this item is going to be a bit short. Mostly because motion sickness meds and allergy meds both make me sleepy, and I just took both this afternoon. At the same time.

I wrote last April that the state lawsuits against health insurance reform were all the result of purely partisan politics. At that time, only 16 states had sued the federal government and of those lawsuits, 15 were triggered either by a Republican Governor, or a Republican Attorney General (some of whom were running for Governor). Nevada's Republican Governor ordered the state's Democratic AG to join the other states, and at that time she had threatened to go to court to fight the order as a violation of the separation of powers.

Arizona only joined the multi-state suit after the legislature passed a law ordering the Democratic AG to sue the Obama administration.

So while there were always legitimate questions over the constitutionality of HIR, most of the lawsuits against it were being driven by partisan disagreement, not questions of law.

I believed then, and still believe now, that the courts would take a dim view of political operatives in the states trying to use the courts to repeal federal legislation that they didn't like. That would become evident at the appellate stage when more than a single judge is involved in making a decision on a complex issue, reducing the possibility of partisan political bias.

I also wrote that HIR was likely to be upheld by the courts based on the analysis of several legal scholars, who were nearly unanimous in their agreement that the individual mandate was the only questionable aspect of reform, and that it was plainly constitutional under both the Commerce Clause, and Congress' Article I powers to tax.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, upheld the mandate and reform this afternoon under the Commerce Clause.

The 6th Circuit has a total of fifteen judges, but only three heard this case. Boyce Martin was appointed by President Carter, Jeffrey Sutton by George W. Bush, and James Graham, by Ronald Reagan. All three voted to uphold reform.

By my count, that's two rulings to uphold, one to strike down the mandate but not all of reform, and one to strike down reform, at the district court level. And one to uphold from the appellate level. That's in addition to the 12 or so judges that have dismissed lawsuits against reform as frivolous.

You can read the opinion here (PDF).