Title: 
Headings: 

Content: Opponents of the Affordable Care Act
                  ("Obamacare") won a small victory when the Court held
                  that states which refuse to expand Medicaid coverage
cannot be denied federal funds for their more limited,
                  existing, programs. In 2012, the Court considered whether provisions of
                    the Affordable Care Act, which withheld federal
                    funds from states that failed to expand 
                    Medicaid coverage in specified ways, was within the
                    power of Congress under the Spending Clause. In National
                      Federation of Independent Business v Sebelius,
                    the Court held that it was unconstitutional to
                    threaten states with the withholding of all federal
                    Medicaid funding, including their existing funding,
                    for failing to expand coverage in the ways Congress
                    sought to encourage. Chief Justice Roberts, in
                    a part of his opinion joined by Justices Breyer and
                    Kagan, concluded that federal funds withheld,
                    representing perhaps 10% of a state's entire budget,
                    was so substantial that states would have no real
                    choice but to give into Congress's demands. As
                    a result, seven justices agreed that the Affordable
                    Care Act's Medicaid expansion provisions violated
                    the principle that the spending power can not be
                    used to coerce states into enacting legislation or
                    participating in a federal program. The Court
                    distinguished South




                      Dakota v Dole, noting that the funds
                    potentially lost by South Dakota in that case
                    representing only one-half a percent of the state's
                    budget. Other





                                  Pages Relating to the Powers
                                      of Congress: The



                                        Necessary and Proper Clause
The
                                        Taxing Power
The Federal
                                        Commerce Power
Power
to





                                          enforce the protections of the
                                          13th, 14th, and 15th
                                          Amendments
10th


                                          and 11th Amendment Limitations
                                          on the Powers of
                                          Congress 
The



                                          Commerce Clause as a
                                          Limitation on State
                                          Power 
Key Constitutional
                              Grants 
of Powers to Congress
Article I, Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and
                          collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to
                          pay the Debts and provide for the common
                          Defence and general Welfare of the United
                          States;