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In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius the Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act cannot be upheld under the Necessary and Proper Clause. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his ruling that the mandate cannot "be sustained under the Necessary and Proper Clause as an integral part of the Affordable Care Acts other reforms. Each of this Courts prior cases upholding laws under that Clause involved exercises of authority derivative of, and in service to, a granted power. [...] The individual mandate, by contrast, vests Congress with the extraordinary ability to create the necessary predicate to the exercise of an enumerated power and draw within its regulatory scope those who would otherwise be outside of it. Even if the individual mandate is necessary to the Affordable Care Acts other reforms, such an expansion of federal power is not a proper means for making those reforms effective."[9] David B. Kopel, an adjunct professor of constitutional law at Denver University, says this ruling returns the Necessary and Proper clause to its original interpretation outlined by John Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland. He states that the clause grants Congress no additional powers, but "simply restates the background principle that Congress can exercise powers which are merely incidental to Congresss enumerated powers."[10] Kopel examples this by referring to Congress enumerated power to establish uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States. He says because Congress has been expressly given the power to establish the rules of bankruptcy by the Constitution, Congress can also enact laws against bankruptcy fraud.[10]
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National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius
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National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius | ||||||
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Argued March 2628, 2012 Decided June 28, 2012 |
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Full case name | National Federation of Independent Business, et al. v. Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al.; Department of Health and Human Services, et al. v. Florida, et al.; Florida, et al. v. Department of Health and Human Services, et al. | |||||
Docket nos. | 11-393 11-398 11-400 |
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Citations | 567 U.S. ___, 2012 WL 2427810 | |||||
Prior history | Act declared unconstitutional sub. nom. Florida ex rel. Bondi v. US Dept. of Health and Human Services, 780 F.Supp.2d 1256 (N.D. Fla. 2011); Affrimed and reversed in parts, 648 F.3d 1235 (11th Cir. 2011); Certiorari granted, 565 U.S. ___ (2011) | |||||
Argument | ||||||
Holding | ||||||
(1) The Anti-Injunction Act does not apply because the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)'s labeling of the individual mandate as a "penalty" instead of a "tax" precludes it from being treated as a tax under the Anti-Injunction Act. (2) The individual mandate provision of the ACA functions constitutionally as a tax, and is therefore a valid exercise of Congress's taxing power. (3) Congress exceeded its Spending Clause authority by coercing states into a transformative change in their Medicaid programs by threatening to revoke all of their Medicaid funding if they did not participate in the Medicaid expansion, which would have an excessive impact on a state's budget. Congress may withhold from states refusing to comply with the ACA's Medicaid expansion provision only the additional funding for Medicaid provided under the ACA.[1] Eleventh Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. |
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Court membership | ||||||
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Case opinions | ||||||
Majority | Roberts (parts I, II, III-C), joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan | |||||
Concurrence | Roberts (part IV), joined by Breyer, Kagan | |||||
Concurrence | Roberts (parts III-A, III-B, III-D) | |||||
Concur/dissent | Ginsburg, joined by Sotomayor; and Breyer, Kagan (parts I, II, III, IV) | |||||
Dissent | Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito | |||||
Dissent | Thomas | |||||
Laws applied | ||||||
U.S. Const. art. I; 124 Stat. 1191025 (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) |
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. ___ (2012), was a landmark[2][3][4][5][6] United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court upheld Congress's power to enact most provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA), including a requirement for most Americans to have health insurance by 2014.[7][8][9][10] The Acts represented a major set of changes to the American health care system that had been the subject of highly contentious debate, largely divided on political party lines.
The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, upheld the individual mandate to buy health insurance as a constitutional exercise of Congress's taxing power. A majority of the justices, including Chief Justice Roberts, agreed that the individual mandate was not a proper use of Congress's Commerce Clause or Necessary and Proper Clause powers, but they did not join in a single opinion. A majority of the justices also agreed that another challenged provision of the Act, a significant expansion of Medicaid, was not a valid exercise of Congress's spending power, as it would coerce states to either accept the expansion or risk losing existing Medicaid funding.