by Jeremy Leaming
The Obama administration is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a federal appeals court opinion that a major provision of the landmark Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.
In August, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled 2-1 that the individual responsibility provision, or the individual mandate, which requires some people to carry a minimum amount of health care coverage starting in 2014 is unconstitutional.
The administration decided to skip asking the entire Eleventh Circuit to reconsider the panel’s ruling. The panel’s opinion was swiftly panned by an array of constitutional law experts and legal pundits. The Atlantic’s Andrew Cohen blasted the Circuit’s majority opinion as sounding frequently like a “political manifesto.” He continued, “Had its language been made public just one day earlier, for example, you can bet your last pork-chop-on-a-stick that it would have been anthemized at the Republican debate in Iowa.”
During an ACS press briefing on the Eleventh Circuit panel decision, ACS Board Chair and University of Chicago law school professor Geoffrey R. Stone said, “[I]f you gave this case, for example, to a group of law students who didn’t have any particular views on the merits but just as a legal exercise, and you gave them the existing precedents, I think they would have no difficulty upholding the legislation.” Audio of the briefing is available here.
In announcing its action in defense of the ACA’s integral provision, the Department of Justice said:
The Department has consistently and successfully defended this law in several court of appeals, and only the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled it unconstitutional. We believe the question is appropriate for review by the Supreme Court.
Throughout history, there have been similar challenges to other landmark legislation such as the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act, and all of those challenges failed. We believe the challenges to Affordable Care Act — like the one in the 11th Circuit — will also ultimately fail and that the Supreme Court will uphold the law.
Earlier in the summer, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the ACA’s mandate, holding, in part, “The minimum coverage provision regulates activity that is decidedly economic.”
On Sept. 8, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit dismissed on procedural grounds a lawsuit challenging the ACA lodged by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. The Fourth Circuit, in part, cited a federal law, the Tax Anti-Injunction Act as precluding challenges to a tax that has not yet been assessed.
For coverage of all the health care law litigation, see the ACS Affordable Act Resource Page.
Post new comment