Posted on 05/14/2018 6:35:57 AM PDT by Kaslin
In one of its most controversial decisions, the Supreme Court in 2012 upheld the constitutionality of a provision in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandating individuals purchase qualifying health insurance or else pay a fine, with Chief Justice John Roberts casting the deciding vote in favor of the law. However, nearly six years later, a provision included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed mostly along party lines in December 2017, may soon force Roberts to reevaluate his decision, potentially ending the health care law without a single vote being cast in Congress.
In Roberts’ majority opinion, which saved the ACA from what appeared to be its certain death, he reasoned the federal government has the authority to impose an individual health care mandate because, despite language in the ACA calling the mandate a penalty, it’s effectively a tax and Congress has the constitutional authority to impose taxes. (Currently, those who fail to purchase a “qualifying” health insurance plan are subject to a penalty of $695 per adult, up to a family maximum of $2,085, or 2.5 percent of income, whichever is greater.)
Interestingly, Roberts joined the Supreme Court’s more conservative justices in rejecting the primary argument made by the Obama administration and the liberal justices, who claimed the federal government has the authority to impose a mandate to purchase health insurance under the Constitution’s “commerce clause” — a provision granting to Congress the power to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”
Roberts’ claim that the individual mandate is a tax was controversial, to say the least, but it may have opened the door to the law’s ultimate demise in a surprising way: If the individual mandate is only constitutional because it’s a tax, then the removal of the penalty from the law should gut the mandate of its constitutionality. And that’s precisely what happened in December, when Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
One of the provisions included in Republicans’ tax reform bill will end the monetary penalty imposed by Obamacare in January 2019 without ending the mandate to purchase health insurance — something Congress likely couldn’t have done under the budget reconciliation rules used to pass the tax bill. By removing the Obamacare fine — or, according to Roberts, the “tax” — the Affordable Care Act likely became, or will become, unconstitutional under the opinion issued by Roberts and the dissent published by four other justices in the 2012 case.
The reason the entire health care law could be determined unconstitutional if the individual mandate is struck down is that the Supreme Court has determined in previous cases that when a single provision of a law is ruled unconstitutional and it’s clear Congress wouldn’t have passed the bill without that provision, the entire law must also be thrown out.
Former Justice Antonin Scalia explained this precedence in the dissent he authored in the 2012 case that upheld Obamacare’s constitutionality, writing, “even if the remaining provisions can operate as Congress designed them to operate, the Court must determine if Congress would have enacted them standing alone and without the unconstitutional portion. If Congress would not, those provisions, too, must be invalidated.”
Because Congress itself declared the individual mandate was “essential” to the entire law’s operation when the Affordable Care Act was passed, a reasonable case could be made that Congress would never have passed the ACA without the individual mandate, and thus the Supreme Court should strike down the entire law if it rules the mandate unconstitutional.
This argument, which was first brought to our attention by former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who was previously one of the leaders in the legal battle against Obamacare, is gaining traction and could soon result in yet another Obamacare showdown in the Supreme Court. On April 23, 20 states and several other plaintiffs filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas alleging the Obamacare individual mandate is now unconstitutional and that if the mandate is determined to be unconstitutional, the entire law must also be thrown out.
If forcing Americans to buy health insurance is “essential” to the ACA, then the unconstitutionality of that “essential” mandate could very well sink the entire health care law, accomplishing in an instant what the Republican-led Congress has failed to achieve since taking power following the 2016 elections.
I understand you point with hours and how repeal of the employer mandate might lead to more hours worked. But I still don't understand how it would lead to higher wages for those hours. If the employer doesn't have to pay for health care then it's a nice addition to their bottom line. It doesn't mean that it will be automatically passed on to the worker. Or even likely to be passed on to the worker.
Look. Understand something.
Everything Obama did is legal and Constitutional, because we learned in 2008 that Presidents are omnipotent and don’t have to abide by the Constitution.
And, everything Trump does is illegal and impeachable, because we learned in 2012 that Presidents are powerless and their actions violate unwritten parts of the Constitution.
Learn it. Live it. Love it.
More hours worked = higher wages
More hours worked = higher paycheck. Wages remain the same.
I'm not psychic or an insider. I just knew if PDJT did nothing and let the marketplace collapse, it would have dire consequences for the conservatives. There needed to be a transition plan and hopefully there is a long-term goal to get the Federal gubermint out of the healthcare business. There is no constitutional basis.
Because employers are required to provide health insurance that even they can’t afford. Thus there would be money on the table to purchase workers as opposed to purchasing expensive health insurance.
you may want to look up what wages actually mean. It is not a rate of pay. He is right you are not
It never was.
Decreasing employee expenses means increases in company profits. There is zero reason to believe that it would automatically result in increased salaries.
Wage:
noun
1. a payment usually of money for labor or services usually according to contract and on an hourly, daily, or piecework basis —often used in plural.
That's from Webster's Dictionary. What's the source for your definition?
bump
noun
1. a payment usually of money for labor or services usually according to contract and on an hourly, daily, or piecework basis —often used in plural.
That's from Webster's Dictionary.
Got the link?
ff
When the Supreme Court originally ruled, there was speculation that Roberts was being blackmailed over irregularities in the adoption of his two kids. In 2019, both kids will have turned 18, rendering moot any questions about their adoption.
“If the individual mandate is only constitutional because it’s a tax, then the removal of the penalty from the law should gut the mandate of its constitutionality. And that’s precisely what happened in December, when Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.”
I guess I don’t get it. So the mandate is still in place, although it has no teeth. So if there is no way to enforce this mandate, does it really matter if it’s constitutional or not? I imagine the liberal justices would just say the mandate is ineffective so let’s pretend it’s not even there. And Roberts. He went out of his way to make the law constitutional last time, this one seems a bit easier for him.
clever! I knew the part about manipulating income so that the premiums would be Too high, but never thought about being in the smoking category to increased premiums. That is too funny. Liberals never think about unintended consequences
Smoking is Optional. Those other things you mentioned, family histories of diseases, are involuntary. Now things like being overweight and not getting exercise, those are also voluntary. If statistics show that people’s behavioral choices lead to increased health cost, I think it’s perfectly fine that insurance companies charge them more.
I was just talking to my neighbor, he is on disability, has had lung cancer, and now has COPD. And he was chain-smoking As I was talking to him. Now taxpayers are forced to pay for his medical, and he’s not doing a thing to make it any cheaper. In fact, his choices have led to taxpayers having to pay a fortune for his care, As well as his disability payments. There should be some kind of repercussions, but he just gets a bunch of free handouts because of his own choices.
And not having to pay for medical for full-time employees would mean higher wages. The bottom line is most employers can afford a certain amount of dollars for a certain job. They calculate the entire amount, and that includes benefits, Social Security, and salary. If one goes up, the other goes down.
Your first para got me thinking that there was a cost punchline coming. It did . From the cost stand point it doesn’t make any difference does it whether a disease is your fault, my fault r nobody’s fault. The truth of the matter is it’s people trying to control other people and frank hatred of smokers isn’t it.
No, I don’t think insurance companies are trying to control anything other than their bottom line. People have a choice, they can smoke all they want but there are consequences in that there will be a higher payments.
I agree that the outrageous taxes put on cigarettes is a method to control smoking. I think that is totally wrong.
Actually my husband tried to tell me the same thing about parachuting. That was a hobby of his before we had a child. If he listed it as a hobby, his Life insurance payments would have tripled. He tried to tell me that insurance companies just hated parachuters. I didn’t buy it :-) I think insurance companies have spreadsheets, and they know what costs them money and what doesn’t. There’s no emotion in it, it is all very calculated (pun intended). They weren’t trying to stop him from parachuting, but they knew it was a dangerous hobby and they had a higher possibility of having to pay out to the claim.
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