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, its 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 Courts 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 Constitutions 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 laws ultimate demise in a surprising way: If the individual mandate is only constitutional because its a tax, then the removal of the penalty from the law should gut the mandate of its constitutionality. And thats 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 couldnt 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 its clear Congress wouldnt 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 Obamacares 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 laws 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.
At some point, if it was deemed legal I imagine insurance companies would look at our family histories and then decide what to charge us. Or maybe even do genetic testing.
But it may not be cost-effective for them to go through all that.
I actually find statistics fascinating. It was my least favorite math class, but they are interesting. So I did a little bit of research on actuarial work. Its very cut and dried, just numbers. Its people angry about those numbers that try to put emotion into it. If you look at it logically, and remove any personal impact, it makes sense.
“No, I dont 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.”
You are right....they are only after the bottom line. It’s ever so convenient though that they are able to ride the tide of demonizing, stigmatizing, ostracising and political grandstanding against smoking and smokers.
I won’t argue that the routine inhaling of smoke can’t be problematic. However, a very relatively low percentage of smokers actually develop lung cancer or COPD. The question then arises as to whether these unfortunates wouldn’t have developed these maladies had they never smoked. (There is a sizable cohort of never smokers who develop lung cancer and/or COPD). Like every other controversial issue one needs to educate oneself whilst being acutely aware of the political/social agendas at play.
What’s funny is that if I were not a tobacco user, I’d have to pay the penalty.
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