The U.S. Supreme Court scheduled 5 1/2 hours of argument over three days on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This is a primer on that historic argument.
The court schedule is as follows:
1. On March 26, the Court scheduled one hour of argument on whether any challenge to the mandate requiring citizens to buy health insurance or pay a penalty must wait until 2014 when that part of the act takes effect. The argument for "waiting" to decide the question occurs because, if the mandate is a tax, then it may only be attacked when it is imposed in 2014.
2. On March 27, the Court scheduled two hours of argument on whether the U.S. Congress overstepped its powers under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution when it mandated buying insurance.
3. On March 28, the Court scheduled 90 minutes of argument on whether the Act can survive if the mandate is struck down as constitutionally defective.
As for how historic is this argument, there has not been such a schedule since the Voting Rights Act challenge in the 60s, that ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.
26 of 50 states have asked that the current patient protection law passed by the U.S. Congress be struck down - principally because of the insurance mandate. 136 other organizations have filed briefs both pro and con, urging the Court either to end or uphold the controversial health care bill.
Each Republican presidential primary candidate has declared that he will repeal the act if elected if the Supreme Court does not do so in its June 2012 decision.
In truth, it is unlikely that whomever is elected President will get an opportunity to repeal the Act. The President alone can't repeal anything unless like-minded members, usually of his own party, controlling both houses repeal the patient protection enactment.
It is highly unlikely that the U.S. Court will overturn this health care law just as other historic challenges to significant legislation including the Voting Rights Act, the Social Security Act and the Civil Rights Act all failed.
This debate encompasses a few critical provisions in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, having to do with the enumerated powers of the U.S. Congress and how Congress may exercise those powers. The U.S. Congress has three relevant powers: first, the power "to lay and collect taxes," second, the power to "provide for ... the general Welfare," and, third, the power "to regulate Commerce ... among the several states." Congress exercises these powers, according to that same article, by "mak(ing) all Laws which shall be necessary and proper" to their exercise.
The opponents of the bill insist the federal government may not mandate that any private citizen buy insurance, denying that Congress has the power to do so or the means to execute it.
1. On March 26, the Court scheduled one hour of argument on whether any challenge to the mandate requiring citizens to buy health insurance or pay a penalty must wait until 2014 when that part of the act takes effect. The argument for "waiting" to decide the question occurs because, if the mandate is a tax, then it may only be attacked when it is imposed in 2014.
2. On March 27, the Court scheduled two hours of argument on whether the U.S. Congress overstepped its powers under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution when it mandated buying insurance.
3. On March 28, the Court scheduled 90 minutes of argument on whether the Act can survive if the mandate is struck down as constitutionally defective.
As for how historic is this argument, there has not been such a schedule since the Voting Rights Act challenge in the 60s, that ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.
26 of 50 states have asked that the current patient protection law passed by the U.S. Congress be struck down - principally because of the insurance mandate. 136 other organizations have filed briefs both pro and con, urging the Court either to end or uphold the controversial health care bill.
Each Republican presidential primary candidate has declared that he will repeal the act if elected if the Supreme Court does not do so in its June 2012 decision.
In truth, it is unlikely that whomever is elected President will get an opportunity to repeal the Act. The President alone can't repeal anything unless like-minded members, usually of his own party, controlling both houses repeal the patient protection enactment.
It is highly unlikely that the U.S. Court will overturn this health care law just as other historic challenges to significant legislation including the Voting Rights Act, the Social Security Act and the Civil Rights Act all failed.
This debate encompasses a few critical provisions in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, having to do with the enumerated powers of the U.S. Congress and how Congress may exercise those powers. The U.S. Congress has three relevant powers: first, the power "to lay and collect taxes," second, the power to "provide for ... the general Welfare," and, third, the power "to regulate Commerce ... among the several states." Congress exercises these powers, according to that same article, by "mak(ing) all Laws which shall be necessary and proper" to their exercise.
The opponents of the bill insist the federal government may not mandate that any private citizen buy insurance, denying that Congress has the power to do so or the means to execute it.
But Medicare already does what some argue can’t be done; Medicare’s coverage is presently financed, in its various parts, for those over 65 years of age with a tax-based "mandate" to buy health care insurance; this program, in place for more than 45 years, imposes a payroll tax on every worker and none may opt out of this "mandated" tax. The opponents of the bill nevertheless persist that the federal government has no "business" in health care, despite Medicare, and government sponsored health care for the military and members of the U.S. Congress.
The rationale for this "new" mandate is fairly straightforward. If you are going to guarantee health insurance coverage for every citizen no matter his or her pre-existing medical condition, then you have to protect the insurance system against "adverse selection," meaning those persons who have no "skin in the game" who choose not to pay for insurance, as they are presently young and healthy, but then opt into the system just when a medical condition does arise and they seek coverage then. The mandate seeks to avoid free-loaders gaming the system and shifting the burden for their health care to every one else by failing to participate themselves until they have a health emergency. The larger the insured pool of contributing participants, the more distributed the risk, and the more reasonable the premiums that everyone else has to pay. The "mandate," requires each to buy insurance unless excluded because of poverty and, anyone who doesn’t, must pay a fine or tax that counterbalances this adverse selection.
Presently, we pick up the medical tab for those without insurance, often at emergency rooms, but we presume, as a matter of public policy, that these folk have no other alternative than emergency rooms.
Congress also has the power to tax and spend money for the general welfare. We are quite familiar with Congress' ability to grant incentives by tax policies and to dedicate those revenues to advance policies deemed generally beneficial. In this case, Congress enunciated its lawful constitutional objective under its enumerated powers, of expanding health coverage nationwide, by eliminating pre-existing conditions that have precluded coverage, barring adverse selection, promoting pooling of those who were uninsured to make the premiums affordable, thereby reducing costly emergency room visits by the uninsured ill now covered by the general public.
As for interstate commerce, we can't ignore the fact that this is a multibillion dollar nationwide insurance industry that spans the geographic boundaries of the "several states" - meaning all fifty states. Congress invoked a lawful and constitutional objective under the commerce power, making laws that were "necessary and proper," to regulate this huge expanse of commerce. It is clear that any person’s decision not to purchase insurance taken in the national aggregate affects interstate commerce. The general public should be aware that it doesn’t take much to find “interstate commerce” is affected. In Gonzales v. Raich; the Supreme Court found that medical marijuana grown lawfully at home (under state law) for personal use and exclusively in one state, California, affected interstate commerce.
Accordingly, if the Supreme Court did the unexpected and struck down the insurance mandate in the Patient Protection Act, they would undermine years of Supreme Court precedents going back to our nation’s founding.
Our history in health care has been shameful, silent acquiesce to human suffering that so often ended in death for those who couldn’t afford treatment. This Act is the first step in curing the nation’s indifference to universal health care.
The rationale for this "new" mandate is fairly straightforward. If you are going to guarantee health insurance coverage for every citizen no matter his or her pre-existing medical condition, then you have to protect the insurance system against "adverse selection," meaning those persons who have no "skin in the game" who choose not to pay for insurance, as they are presently young and healthy, but then opt into the system just when a medical condition does arise and they seek coverage then. The mandate seeks to avoid free-loaders gaming the system and shifting the burden for their health care to every one else by failing to participate themselves until they have a health emergency. The larger the insured pool of contributing participants, the more distributed the risk, and the more reasonable the premiums that everyone else has to pay. The "mandate," requires each to buy insurance unless excluded because of poverty and, anyone who doesn’t, must pay a fine or tax that counterbalances this adverse selection.
Presently, we pick up the medical tab for those without insurance, often at emergency rooms, but we presume, as a matter of public policy, that these folk have no other alternative than emergency rooms.
Congress also has the power to tax and spend money for the general welfare. We are quite familiar with Congress' ability to grant incentives by tax policies and to dedicate those revenues to advance policies deemed generally beneficial. In this case, Congress enunciated its lawful constitutional objective under its enumerated powers, of expanding health coverage nationwide, by eliminating pre-existing conditions that have precluded coverage, barring adverse selection, promoting pooling of those who were uninsured to make the premiums affordable, thereby reducing costly emergency room visits by the uninsured ill now covered by the general public.
As for interstate commerce, we can't ignore the fact that this is a multibillion dollar nationwide insurance industry that spans the geographic boundaries of the "several states" - meaning all fifty states. Congress invoked a lawful and constitutional objective under the commerce power, making laws that were "necessary and proper," to regulate this huge expanse of commerce. It is clear that any person’s decision not to purchase insurance taken in the national aggregate affects interstate commerce. The general public should be aware that it doesn’t take much to find “interstate commerce” is affected. In Gonzales v. Raich; the Supreme Court found that medical marijuana grown lawfully at home (under state law) for personal use and exclusively in one state, California, affected interstate commerce.
Accordingly, if the Supreme Court did the unexpected and struck down the insurance mandate in the Patient Protection Act, they would undermine years of Supreme Court precedents going back to our nation’s founding.
Our history in health care has been shameful, silent acquiesce to human suffering that so often ended in death for those who couldn’t afford treatment. This Act is the first step in curing the nation’s indifference to universal health care.
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