Mary Brown, oppo­nent of the PPACA indi­vid­ual mandate

Mary Brown is one of the plain­tiffs in the case to over­turn the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act (PPACA or Oba­macare) require­ment that all Amer­i­cans have health insur­ance. This require­ment is com­monly referred to as the “indi­vid­ual man­date”, and its con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity is being decided by the Supreme Court right now.

Brown’s argu­ment was that her fam­ily doesn’t need health insur­ance because they are per­fectly capa­ble of pay­ing for their own health­care. U.S. Dis­trict Judge Roger Vin­son noted, with regard to Brown’s com­plaint, that “She is a small-​​business owner … [who] does not believe the cost of health insur­ance is a wise or accept­able use of her resources.” To Mrs. Brown, the man­date merely requires her to pay for the insur­ance com­pa­nies’ over­head, and that is unacceptable.

But a funny thing hap­pened on the way to the Supreme Court. (more…)