Posts tagged Individual mandate

Supreme Court to Rule on PPACA Today

10
10 months ago
by Monotreme in

The Supreme Court is sched­uled to read its last deci­sions of the 2011–2012 term today, start­ing at 10:00 am EDT. That means that some­time this morn­ing, the world will finally have an answer on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act (PPACA, or “Obamacare”).

If you want to read the three arti­cles we wrote pre­view­ing the oral argu­ments of late March, they are here, here and here.

If you want to par­tic­i­pate in the live­blog at SCO­TUS­blog, use this link. Amy Howe of SCO­TUS­blog has an excel­lent run­down of the argu­ments “in Plain Eng­lish”.

Shortly after the deci­sion is announced, we will post up an arti­cle out­lin­ing the key points in the deci­sion. Any com­ments made here will be trans­ferred to the new arti­cle, so if you want to start an argu­ment now, or lay down a marker on the antic­i­pated out­come, do that here.

Update 10:13 am: It looks like the PPACA was upheld in its entirety, by a 5–4 vote (Alito, Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas dis­sent­ing), with some lim­i­ta­tions on Med­ic­aid fund­ing to states. Michael is work­ing on the full arti­cle that will replace this one. Stay tuned.

Related arti­cles

The “Unprecedented” Individual Mandate

18
1 year ago
by Michael Weiss in

Sen­a­tor Orrin Hatch (R-​​UT) called the indi­vid­ual man­date “unprecedented”.

The Supreme Court is cur­rently delib­er­at­ing on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act’s “indi­vid­ual man­date”, which requires all Amer­i­cans to pur­chase med­ical insurance.

It has been pointed out by oppo­nents that the indi­vid­ual man­date is an unprece­dented require­ment to engage in com­merce. The Con­gres­sional Research Ser­vice, for exam­ple, observed that “it is a novel issue whether Con­gress may use the clause to require an indi­vid­ual to pur­chase a good or a service.”

The Cato Insti­tute came to a sim­i­lar con­clu­sion, that “[f]inding the man­date con­sti­tu­tional would be the first inter­pre­ta­tion of the Com­merce Clause to per­mit the reg­u­la­tion of inac­tiv­ity — in effect requir­ing an indi­vid­ual to engage in an eco­nomic transaction.”

Yet it seems that, from an exam­i­na­tion of his­tory, they are incor­rect. (more…)

Brown v. Obamacare

35
1 year ago
by Michael Weiss in

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…)

Supreme Court Watch: PPACA Day 2

12
1 year ago
by dcpetterson in
The United States Supreme Court, the highest c...

The United States Supreme Court. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This week, the Supreme Court is hear­ing argu­ments about the Con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act (PPACA, ACA, or Oba­macare). Audio of Monday’s argu­ment can be heard here. It is fas­ci­nat­ing to lis­ten to the record­ing. The chance to hear a case as it is argued before the high­est court in the land is a treat not to be avoided. One gets a feel for the peo­ple behind the names, the voices and per­son­al­i­ties of a hand­ful of peo­ple (except for Jus­tice Clarence Thomas, whose voice is not heard) who decide some of the most vital issues of our day.  It sounds like a polite and eru­dite con­ver­sa­tion among witty but seri­ous peo­ple. Just like the com­ments on Log­a­rchism. On a good day, any­way. This is con­sti­tu­tional law at its finest. (more…)

Supreme Court Watch: PPACA on Trial

33
1 year ago
by Michael Weiss in
President Barack Obama's signature on the heal...

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s sig­na­ture on the health insur­ance reform bill at the White House, March 23, 2010.

Today marks the first two hours of six hours of Supreme Court tes­ti­mony, over three days, on U.S. Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices v. Florida, which serves to adju­di­cate the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act (PPACA, ACA, or Oba­macare). It’s now three days since the sec­ond anniver­sary of Pres­i­dent Obama sign­ing the ACA into law.

Today and tomor­row, the argu­ments are focused on the ques­tion of the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of the indi­vid­ual man­date. Wednes­day, argu­ments shift to answer two ques­tions. First, does Con­gress have the author­ity to require states to com­ply with the new Medicare pro­vi­sions in order to receive fed­eral fund­ing for their Med­ic­aid pro­grams? Sec­ond, if the indi­vid­ual man­date is uncon­sti­tu­tional, does that inval­i­date the ACA in its entirety, or is that pro­vi­sion sev­er­able? (more…)

The Supreme Gamble

64
1 year ago
by Michael Weiss in

In the past few days, I’ve talked about two dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal gam­bles. Today I’ll talk about a third.

This week, the Obama admin­is­tra­tion opted not to appeal last month’s 11th Cir­cuit PPACA rul­ing, which con­cluded that the indi­vid­ual man­date is uncon­sti­tu­tional. Given that Obama’s posi­tion is, obvi­ously, that the man­date is con­sti­tu­tional, why not appeal the decision?

Sim­ply put, because this forces the Supreme Court’s hand. (more…)

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