Supreme Court to Hear Challenges to Health Care Reform

The Supreme Court announced on Monday, November 14, 2011 that it will hear challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). President Obama signed PPACA on March 23, 2010, and legal challenges to the landmark federal health care reform law arose almost immediately. Of the several petitions before it, the Supreme Court chose to review questions from three out of the 11th Circuit, the only circuit court to invalidate the requirement that individuals have health insurance. The Court has agreed to hear the following questions:

Whether Congress had the power under Article I of the Constitution to enact the individual mandate provisions of PPACA; If the individual mandate is not constitutional, to what extent (if any) the mandate can be severed from the remainder of PPACA; Whether current challenges to the individual mandate are barred by the tax Anti-Injunction Act, which prohibits a legal challenge to a tax before the tax is paid; and Whether PPACA's expansion of Medicaid is unconstitutionally coercive to the states. Issues to Be Argued

Congress's Power

Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce has generally been broadly interpreted since the New Deal, but some recent cases have limited that power. At issue here is whether PPACA's minimum essential coverage requirement is a necessary and proper act of Congress that either has substantial effects on or is essential to a broader regulation of interstate commerce.

Severability

If the Court were to find the individual mandate unconstitutional, it would then determine whether the mandate may be separated from the rest of the law or whether the mandate is a necessary part of the law whose other provisions (including the insurance reforms) cannot stand on their own. If the Court determines that the mandate is not severable, it could strike down the entire law, including the various insurance reforms with which employers and plans are currently required to comply.

Anti-Injunction Act

Some judges have determined that the legal challenge...

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