Title: Is the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional? - Washington Times
Headings: 'Is the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional?'
'Is the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional?'
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
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Content: Can Congress force me to eat broccoli? When the Supreme Court took a preliminary vote after oral arguments on the constitutionality of the individual mandate, the tally was 5-4 to invalidate it. Then Chief Justice John Roberts had second thoughts. He saw the polls, which showed Mitt Romney safely ahead of President Barack Obama in the then-upcoming presidential race, and Republicans looking good to capture Congress. He reasoned to his colleagues that it would be better for history and the court’s legacy if the political branches invalidated legislation as controversial as the ACA, rather than the court. So, he went along with the finding that the Commerce Clause does not confer the power to compel entry into interstate commerce, but he needed a way to salvage the individual mandate. Breaking with the five-member conservative majority on the court, he reasoned that while Congress cannot regulate everything under the sun (its powers to regulate are limited by the Constitution), it can tax anything under the sun. So, if the IRS assessment visited upon those who fail to acquire health insurance is a tax, the individual mandate is constitutional. This was a novel argument, in large measure because the litigants challenging the constitutionality of the individual mandate and the Department of Justice defending it all argued to the court that the IRS assessment was not a tax. President Obama had promised voters that the federal micromanagement of health care would not add to individuals’ tax burden, and the challengers called the assessment a penalty so as to trigger a hearing for each person as to whom the IRS imposed an assessment.