Healthcare

Mandate Shmandate

It was only a matter of time before a random wingnut judge handed down a decision like this:

A federal judge in Virginia ruled Monday that the individual mandate contained in the health care law passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama this year is unconstitutional.

Judge Henry E. Hudson found in favor of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who brought this suit separately from the other state attorney generals suing the federal government over the law. He was the first judge to rule against the law.

Like or dislike; support or not, the individual mandate is nothing more than a tax. No insurance, you pay a tax. If you have insurance, no tax. And there's nothing in the law that designates any sort of enforcement or penalty if you simply refuse to pay the tax (unlike actual taxes, which are, heretofore, constitutional). But leave it to Republicans to distort and lie and turn relatively mundane things into gigantic irradiated monsters.