I’ve generally stayed at the periphery on the debate over the constitutionality of health care reform, mostly because it’s not something that I particularly enjoy blogging about. As I see it, a lot of the blogging about the legal issues are a weird mix of actual legal analysis and efforts to influence the broader political […]
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Is the Health Care Mandate a Direct Tax?
Some have argued that it does not matter whether the individual mandate is a constitutional exercise of the power to regulate “commerce . . . among the several states” because the mandate — or, more properly, the penalty for failing to comply with the requirement to obtain health insurance — is within Congress’ power to […]
My Upcoming Notre Dame Speech on the Constitutionality of the Health Care Mandate
This Thursday at 12:30 PM, I will be speaking at Notre Dame Law School on the constitutionality of the new health care law, especially focusing on the provision mandating that individuals purchase health insurance even if they prefer not to. I was invited by the Notre Dame Federalist society. The event will be held in […]
The Myth of an Expert Consensus on the Constitutionality of the Health Care Mandate Revisited
Back in December, I wrote a post debunking “The Myth of an Expert Consensus on the Constitutionality of an Individual Health Insurance Mandate.” Despite claims by some Democratic politicians and activists, there are numerous prominent constitutional law scholars who believe that the mandate is unconstitutional. I noted several of them in my post, including Richard […]
Why Would Congress Question Corporate Executives About Disclosures of Health Care Costs?
Megan McArdle has a good post on Congress’s decision to hold hearings about corporations’ disclosing their charges against earnings based on estimates of health care costs: The Democrats, however, seem to believe that Generally Accepted Accounting Principles are some sort of conspiracy against Obamacare, and all that is good and right in America. Here’s the […]
New York Times Forum: “Is the Health Care Law Unconstitutional?
The New York Times’ online forum Room For Debate has a remarkably fair and balanced discussion of the constitutionality of the health care bill by Jack M. Balkin (Yale Law School), Abbe R. Gluck (Columbia Law School), David B. Rivkin and Lee A. Casey (counsel in the Florida lawsuit), James F. Blumstein, Vanderbilt Law School, […]
Lawsuits Against the Health Care Bill
The Publius blog a helpful post linking information on the various lawsuits recently filed against the Obama health care bill. In addition to the suit filed by 13 states and a separate suit by the state of Virginia, there is a little-noticed lawsuit challenging the individual mandate brought by the conservative Thomas More Law Center […]
“No Case Citations in Florida Health Care Lawsuit”
Marc Ambinder, the politics editor of The Atlantic, writes, Reading through the complaint filed by 13 state attorneys general, against the health reform legislation, reader @calchala was struck by something that wasn’t there: the lack of any specific case citation to buttress the underlying claim that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to impose […]
New Health Care Law Regulates Restaurant Menus, Drive-Through Signs of Restaurant Chains
The New York Times reports: Buried deep in the health care legislation that President Obama signed on Tuesday is a new requirement that will affect any American who walks into a McDonald’s, Starbucks or Burger King. Every big restaurant chain in the nation will now be required to put calorie information on their menus and […]
Radio Debate on the Constitutionality of the Health Care Bill
Readers in the southern California area may be interested to know that, tomorrow, I will be debating the constitutionality of the health care bill on KPCC’s Air Talk program at 2 PM eastern time, 11 AM Pacific time. At this point, I am told that my opponent will be Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of the UC […]
13 States File Suit Against Health Care Reform
Thirteen state attorneys general — twelve Republicans and one Democrat — filed suit today against the health care reform signed into law by President Obama. Their complaint is here. In a separate action, a fourteenth state (Virginia) also filed suit.
Washington Post Q & A on Constitutionality of Health Care Bill
I just finished a live Q & A on WashingtonPost.com following up on my Washington Post column yesterday on the constitutional issues raised by the health insurance bill. It was pretty demanding to do it in real time, so please forgive any statements made in haste, but you might find it interesting. It is here.
Barack Obama sends me personal email thanking me for passing health care
I received the following email from Barack Obama personally Monday morning at 1:06am: James — For the first time in our nation’s history, Congress has passed comprehensive health care reform. America waited a hundred years and fought for decades to reach this moment. Tonight, thanks to you, we are finally here. Consider the staggering scope […]
The Stupak Conundrum: Why Did the Stupakites Change Their Positions on the Health Care Bill in Exchange for a Meaningless Executive Order?
The House of Representatives just passed the health reform bill previously enacted by the Senate by a narrow 219-212 vote. They probably could not have done without the support of eight to nine Democratic pro-life congressmen led by Representative Bart Stupak, who agreed to support the bill just before the vote in exchange for an […]
Crisis, the Health Care Bill, and the Growth of Government
The passage of the health care demonstrates the ways in which economic crises create opportunities to expand the power of government, often in ways that have little connection to any effort to alleviate the crisis itself. Back in the fall of 2008, I expressed my fear that the combination of an economic crisis, political ignorance […]