As the supreme court can only interpret the cases brought before it, and nearly all of them are equally examples of state vs. federal law, they've chosen to affirm federal law rather than interpret the fourteenth amendment more broadly. Don't know why, they just do.
Of course there is, which is why there's the potential for the tier system to be overturned eventually. There would also be hell to pay.
It's applied to private things too, but currently one of the big health care reform debates is making it illegal for insurance companies to discriminate based on gender and preexisting conditions. Also women have cheaper car insurance, because statistically men are involved in more car accidents. But employers and banks, and landlords and people selling houses, and just about everyone else have to comply with anti-discrimination laws, and the insurance company exception was a special amendment to the law that a lot of people are very pissed about. (People like me who only have affordable health insurance because I'm covered under my parents' plan, grrr.)
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2010-02-13 05:15 am (UTC)Of course there is, which is why there's the potential for the tier system to be overturned eventually. There would also be hell to pay.
It's applied to private things too, but currently one of the big health care reform debates is making it illegal for insurance companies to discriminate based on gender and preexisting conditions. Also women have cheaper car insurance, because statistically men are involved in more car accidents. But employers and banks, and landlords and people selling houses, and just about everyone else have to comply with anti-discrimination laws, and the insurance company exception was a special amendment to the law that a lot of people are very pissed about. (People like me who only have affordable health insurance because I'm covered under my parents' plan, grrr.)