Obama Administration Submits Legal Brief Supporting Individual Mandate

Posted by BAS - 09 January, 2012

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As the next move in the continuing saga over the constitutionality of health care reform, the Obama administration submitted a 130-page legal brief to the Supreme Court Friday afternoon defending the constitutionality of the requirement that Americans purchase health insurance beginning in 2014 or face a penalty. This "individual mandate" is the most hotly contested aspect of the Affordable Care Act. Arguments in Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida, the case challenging the constitutionality of health care reform, will be heard by the Supreme Court March 26 through March 28, 2012. Arguments focusing on the individual mandate are scheduled for hearing March 27, 2012.

Opponents of the individual mandate argue that the federal government cannot force an individual to purchase health coverage. Supporters of the provision argue that the government forces individuals to take all sorts of actions, and is permitted to impose the individual mandate through Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce and lay and collect taxes.

The Administration's brief pits the realities of the health care market against an individual's perceived personal liberties. The brief posits that uninsured Americans unfairly shift risk to other individuals. A main premise set forth in the Administration's argument is that the uninsured, as a class, are active participants in the health care marketplace, and the individual mandate merely regulates how those individuals finance and pay for that active participation. The mandate, it argues, requires payment through insurance, rather than attempted self-payment with the risk shifted toward others.

The brief also takes the position that the penalty for failure to purchase health coverage is nothing more than a tax, which is levied by the government in all sorts of situations.

As the first of many briefs sure to be submitted for consideration, the document sets forth the Obama Administration's position on the constitutional support for the individual mandate. Additional legal briefs will certainly be forthcoming, and all eyes will be on the Supreme Court in late March as both sides in the health care debate present their arguments for consideration.

Topics: Health Care Reform (ACA)


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