Free Republic

A federal appeals court heard arguments on Thursday that Obamacare is unconstitutional because it is a tax that originated in the Senate rather than the House and thus violates the Origination Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The case, Sissel v. Health and Human Services, was argued before a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals with two jurists recently appointed by President Barack Obama and the other by President Bill Clinton. Appearing before the panel, Timothy Sandefur, co-counsel for the Pacific Legal Foundation that launched Sissel, said the House bill that became the Affordable Care Act in the...

Even as Obamacare faces a rocky rollout, the legal battle against the program grinds on. A lawsuit aimed at overturning Obamacare on the basis of the Origination Clause has moved to the appeals court after losing its first round in federal trial court. Attorneys for the Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento filed an appeal last week with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals after a federal judge ruled June 28 in favor of the Obama administration’s motion to dismiss the case. “Whoever loses at this stage of the proceeding will undoubtedly file at United States Supreme Court for a...