By Hope Hodge Human Events
Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON D.C. In a landmark decision Thursday the Supreme Court said the individual mandate can be upheld as a tax: A law that would force most Americans to buy health care will survive in limited form as a tax the Supreme Court ruled dealing disappointment to many conservatives while including several smaller victories for the free market and individual rights.
In a split 5-4 decision with Chief Justice John Roberts delivering the majority opinion the court upheld President Barack Obamas 2700-page Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act including a much-decried provision that would require all Americans to purchase a minimum level of health insurance coverage a far-reaching move that justices in oral argument compared to being forced to buy healthy broccoli.
The court opined that the mandate could not be supported under the Constitutions Commerce Clause but could be seen as part of Congresss power to tax.
Justice Antonin Scalia was joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in filing a dissent saying the court used activist reasoning to defend a constitutionally indefensible law.
The Court today decides to save a statute Congress did not write" Scalia said. … The Court regards its strained statutory interpretation as judicial modesty it is not. It amounts instead to a vast judicial overreaching. It creates a debilitated inoperable version of health care regulation that Congress did not enact and the public does not expect."
Thomas also wrote separately to voice disagreement with the courts use at all of the Commerce Clause as a test in the case saying the clause was overused to far expand the powers of Congress.
The governments unprecedented claim in this suit that it may regulate not only economic activity but also inactivity that substantially affects interstate commerce is a case in point" he wrote.
This decision likely to be declared a resounding victory for the president who made the PPACA the keystone accomplishment of his first term in fact will have a variety of political reverberations.
The Supreme Court has said the individual mandate can be upheld as a tax although it cannot be supported under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Chief Justice Roberts delivered the majority opinion joined in the first part by justices Ginsburg Breyer Sotomayor and Kagan.Justices Scalia Kennedy Thomas and Alito filed a dissenting opinion to the whole.
People for reasons of their own often fail to do things that would be good for them or for society" he wrote. Under the Governments logic that authorizes Congress to use its commerce power to compel citizens to act as the Government would have them act. That is not the country the Framers of our Constitution envisioned."
He also dispensed with attempts by the government to regulate the uninsured based on their prophesied future activity" whether they will be in the market for health care.
The Commerce Clause is not a general license to regulate an individual from cradle to grave simply because he will predictably engage in particular transactions" he said. Any police power to regulate individuals as such as opposed to their activities remains vested in the states."
However Roberts said the mandate can be seen as a tax because individuals who choose to forgo insurance have the alternative to pay a fine to the IRS instead.
enactment does not apply the court said; but it still could be seen as a tax by the court.
The other much-contested part of the healthcare law would expand Medicaid by a staggering 16 million people. The court ruled that this too would survive under a narrow reading which gave leeway to the states to decide whether to implement the measure.
Justice Roberts wrote a separate opinion to explain his reasoning in striking down a requirement for states to adopt the expansion but allowing them to opt in if they choose. In this opinion he was joined by all justices but Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in finding the requirement for states unconstitutional making that ruling 7-2 though the decision to narrowly uphold the law regardless remained a 5-4 split.
Under the Constitutions Spending Clause Roberts wrote Congresss power was limited to require states to comply with federal goals.
Indeed the manner in which the expansion is structured indicates that while Congress may have styled the expansion a mere alteration of existing Medicaid it recognized it was enlisting the States in a new healthcare program" Roberts wrote.
But he said Congress may offer funds under the law to allow states to expand the availability of Medicaid if they choose to do so.
Another victory for conservatives may be found in this last part: it is unconstitutional the court holds to force states to participate in the expansion.
The governments unprecedented claim in this suit that it may regulate not only economic activity but also inactivity that substantially affects interstate commerce is a case in point" he wrote.
This decision likely to be declared a resounding victory for the president who made the PPACA the keystone accomplishment of his first term in fact will have a variety of political reverberations.
The Supreme Court has said the individual mandate can be upheld as a tax although it cannot be supported under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Chief Justice Roberts delivered the majority opinion joined in the first part by justices Ginsburg Breyer Sotomayor and Kagan.Justices Scalia Kennedy Thomas and Alito filed a dissenting opinion to the whole.
People for reasons of their own often fail to do things that would be good for them or for society" he wrote. Under the Governments logic that authorizes Congress to use its commerce power to compel citizens to act as the Government would have them act. That is not the country the Framers of our Constitution envisioned."
He also dispensed with attempts by the government to regulate the uninsured based on their prophesied future activity" whether they will be in the market for health care.
The Commerce Clause is not a general license to regulate an individual from cradle to grave simply because he will predictably engage in particular transactions" he said. Any police power to regulate individuals as such as opposed to their activities remains vested in the states."
However Roberts said the mandate can be seen as a tax because individuals who choose to forgo insurance have the alternative to pay a fine to the IRS instead.
Under that theory the mandate is not a legal command to buy insurance" Roberts wrote. Rather it makes going without insurance just another thing the Government taxes like buying gasoline or earning income."Because the fee is described as a penalty rather than a tax in the statute the Anti-Injunction Act which would postpone a ruling on taxes until
enactment does not apply the court said; but it still could be seen as a tax by the court.
The other much-contested part of the healthcare law would expand Medicaid by a staggering 16 million people. The court ruled that this too would survive under a narrow reading which gave leeway to the states to decide whether to implement the measure.
Justice Roberts wrote a separate opinion to explain his reasoning in striking down a requirement for states to adopt the expansion but allowing them to opt in if they choose. In this opinion he was joined by all justices but Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in finding the requirement for states unconstitutional making that ruling 7-2 though the decision to narrowly uphold the law regardless remained a 5-4 split.
Under the Constitutions Spending Clause Roberts wrote Congresss power was limited to require states to comply with federal goals.
Indeed the manner in which the expansion is structured indicates that while Congress may have styled the expansion a mere alteration of existing Medicaid it recognized it was enlisting the States in a new healthcare program" Roberts wrote.
But he said Congress may offer funds under the law to allow states to expand the availability of Medicaid if they choose to do so.
Another victory for conservatives may be found in this last part: it is unconstitutional the court holds to force states to participate in the expansion.
As a practical matter that means states may now choose to reject the expansion; that is the whole point" Chief Justice John Roberts wriote. … Congress has no authority to order the states to regulate according to its instructions."The law is expected to cost the country $950 billion over the first ten years but some have estimated the Medicaid expansion could drive costs even higher if all states participate. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed an opinion concurring in part concurring partly with the judgment and dissenting in part saying she believed the Commerce Clause allowed Congress to enact the individual mandate and holding the Medicaid expansion as it was written. She was joined in the whole of her opinion by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and in various parts by Justice Stephen Breyer and Justice Elena Kagan. Just as the majority of Americans supported Arizonas hard-line laws on immigration which the court overturned earlier this week polls continue to show that Americans oppose Obamas health law 56 to 44.
