Supreme Court Finds PPACA Individual Mandate Constitutional

June 28, 2012 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The Supreme Court issued its highly-anticipated ruling on President Obama's health reform law, upholding the individual health insurance coverage mandate as permissible under Congress’s taxing authority.

The court’s examination of the law received much coverage during three days of oral arguments in March. Some of the justices stated the government was pushing for excessive authority over Americans by requiring them to buy anything. Justices Antonin Gregory Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts and Samuel Alito repeatedly criticized the requirement to buy health insurance as forcing people to enter a market, which according to the justices is a new and troubling use of federal power (see “Supreme Court Justices Question Excessive Authority of Health Care Mandate”)  

Arguing the case for the Obama administration, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. defended the law as a constitutional exercise of congressional power under the charter’s commerce clause to regulate interstate commerce. He said lawmakers were regulating health insurance to deal with the problem of millions of people who lack coverage and therefore shift costs to the insured when they cannot pay for their medical care.  

The court rejected the commerce clause argument, but ruled that Congress nevertheless had the power to impose the mandate because it can be considered a tax, according to The Washington Post. 

As soon as Obama signed the health-care bill in March 2010, opponents raced to challenge it, including more than 25 states that filed a consolidated lawsuit in Florida (see “Plaintiffs in Florida HCR Challenge Request Supreme Court Review”). After the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the individual mandate, the Obama administration asked for Supreme Court review (see “Obama Administration Asks for High Court Review of Health Care Law”).  

Other courts upheld the law, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (see “U.S. Court of Appeals Upholds Obama Health Care Law”). Eleven state attorneys general filed a brief with the Supreme Court in support of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (see “States Again Ask High Court to Uphold Health Care Law”).  

Polls have shown that employers expected the individual mandate to be struck down (see “Employers Say ACA Individual Mandate Will Be Overturned”), and the majority (60%) wanted a full repeal of the law (see “Employers Hoping for Repeal of Health Reform Law”).

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