Senate holds hearing on health care law's constitutionality '14 months and $2.7 trillion too late'

[Geee]

Daily Caller:

Shortly before 10 a.m. on Wednesday, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee filed into room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building to proceed with a hearing on something that had already been decided. The topic of discussion was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the question being asked of the witnesses was whether or not the individual mandate requiring Americans to purchase health insurance under penalty of a fine is constitutional.

Yet the hearing consisted of more show than substance. “Health Care Law Is Constitutional. Repeal Efforts Will Fail,” read the headline of a press release from the Democrats of the Judiciary Committee before the sessions even ended, begging the question of why, then, the hearing was called in the first place?

Republicans have been at war with President Obama’s health care bill since the moment he first proposed such a bill during the 2008 presidential campaign. And when the House under a new Republican majority voted for a full repeal, and two judges — one in Virginia and one in Florida — ruled the bill unconstitutional, Democrats finally had to take notice, though not even that went without Republican criticism.

Nearly all the Republican members present thanked Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont for holding the hearing, but followed their gratitude up with disapproval over not having had the hearing sooner.