minimum coverage provision

by Jeremy Leaming

President Obama’s warning that the Supreme Court should avoid destroying health care reform has not only irked a federal appeals court judge, but has spurred Republican leaders in the Senate to rush to the defense of the lifetime-appointed justices.

Responding to a reporter’s question about oral arguments in HHS v. Florida, where Justice Antonin Scalia embraced the simplistic broccoli argument, Obama said the high court would be ignoring precedent if it were to invalidate or greatly hobble the Affordable Care Act. The president noted that Supreme Court precedent holds that Congress has broad power to regulate commerce and to tax and spend for the general welfare. “That’s not just my opinion, by the way,” Obama said. “That’s the opinion of legal experts across the ideological spectrum, including two very conservative appellate court justices who said this wasn’t even a close call.” (Obama was referring to appeals court Judges Laurence Silberman and Jeffrey Sutton, who ruled that the health care law’s integral measure -- the minimum coverage provision -- was a valid exercise of Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce.)

As TPM reported, the president’s defense of the health care law apparently prompted Judge Jerry Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit presiding in a challenge to a part of the Affordable Care Act to demand that Attorney General Eric Holder submit a letter to the appeals court stating the administration’s understanding of judicial review.

Holder responded in a letter to the appeals court judges in Physician Hospitals of America v. Sebelius that the DOJ “has not in this litigation, nor in any other litigation of which I am aware, ever asked this or any other Court to reconsider or limit long-established precedent concerning judicial review of the constitutionality of federal legislation.”

Holder noted that the question of judicial review was resolved in the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison.

The attorney general also reminded the Fifth Circuit judges that judicial review was not an issue in the case before them.

by Jeremy Leaming

A Supreme Court opinion striking health care reform would be indefensible and widely perceived as political said former Solicitor General Walter Dellinger at a recent ACS briefing on last week’s oral arguments in HHS v. Florida.

Dellinger’s sentiment is echoed in an editorial from The New York Times, which said the oral arguments in the health care reform case should put to rest the widely held belief that “legal conservatives are dedicated to judicial restraint ….” For the Roberts Court, The Times continued, has proven to be a judicial entity ready to “replace law made by Congress with law made by justices.”

The Times’ editorial continued, “Established precedents support broad authority for Congress to regulate national commerce, and the health care market is unquestionably national in scope. Yet to Justice Kennedy the mandate requiring most Americans to obtain health insurance represents ‘a step beyond what our cases have allowed, the affirmative duty to act, to go into commerce.’ To Justice Breyer, it’s clear that ‘if there are substantial effects on interstate commerce, Congress can act.’”

President Obama fielding questions from reporters following a news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, issued concern about a high court opinion invalidating the Affordable Care Act, Politico reported.

“I just remind conservative commentators that for years we’ve heard that the biggest problem is judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint,” Obama said. “That a group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step.”

The president said his confidence was based on “precedent out there. That’s not just my opinion, by the way. That’s the opinion of legal experts across the ideological spectrum, including two very conservative appellate court justices who said this wasn’t even a close call.”