On January 7, co-bloggers Randy Barnett, Orin Kerr, and I will be speaking at an upcoming event at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC on our recently published book A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case, which details ours and the VC’s role in developing the arguments in the Supreme […]
Archive | Individual Mandate
Upcoming Event on A Conspiracy Against Obamacare
Co-bloggers Randy Barnett, Orin Kerr, and I will be speaking at an upcoming event at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC on our recently published book A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case, which details ours and the VC’s role in developing the arguments in the Supreme Court’s Obamacare decision […]
The Impact of the Volokh Conspiracy on the Obamacare Litigation
By Ilya Somin on November 13, 2013 11:10 am in Blogosphere, Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate
Part of my concluding essay in my new book, A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (coauthored with VC co-bloggers Randy Barnett, Jonathan Adler, David Bernstein, Orin Kerr, and David Kopel) deals with the impact of the VC and the blogosphere on the case. Here is an excerpt: What role […]
Upcoming Josh Blackman Presentation on his book Unprecedented at George Mason University School of Law
This Wednesday from 5 to 6 PM, South Texas College of Law Professor Josh Blackman will be doing a presentation on his book Unprecedented: The Constitutional Challenge to Obamacare at George Mason University School of Law. In addition to being a highly successful young legal academic, Josh is also a prominent blogger, and a GMUSL […]
Book Signing at the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention
By Ilya Somin on November 8, 2013 1:40 pm in Democracy and Political Ignorance, Federalism, Individual Mandate
Next Friday, November 15, from 11 to 12 AM, I will be signing copies of my recently published books Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter and A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case, at the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention, in the main promenade of the hotel […]
Why the Obamacare Case May not be “Settled Law”
By Ilya Somin on October 4, 2013 11:10 am in Constitutional History, Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate
Indiana University law professor Gerard Magliocca has an excellent Washington Post column on why the Supreme Court’s decision largely upholding the constitutionality of Obamacare may not be fully “settled law”: The Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress, signed by President Obama, upheld by the Supreme Court and reconfirmed by the president’s reelection. Many of […]
Is there a Generational Divide over “Judicial Restraint” Between Reaganites and Libertarians?
By Ilya Somin on September 19, 2013 4:23 pm in Conservatism, Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Judicial Power, Libertarianism
Various commentators such as Garrett Epps, Mark Tushnet, and recent guest-blogger Josh Blackman argue that there is a generational divide among right of center jurists between Reaganite advocates of “judicial restraint” and later, more libertarian figures who are less willing to defer to legislatures and more eager to strike down laws they consider unconstitutional. They […]
New Books on the Obamacare Case
By Ilya Somin on August 12, 2013 11:40 am in Commerce Clause, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Necessary and Proper
A little over a year has passed since the Supreme Court’s momentous decision in NFIB v. Sebelius. Not surprisingly, there is still no consensus on what the Court got right, what it got wrong, and what the long term significance of the case will be. But several interesting books about the case have just been […]
The First Anniversary of the Obamacare Decision
By Ilya Somin on June 28, 2013 1:30 pm in Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Necessary and Proper, Spending Clause, Taxing and Spending Clause
Today is the first anniversary of NFIB v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in the Obamacare case. It is still too soon for us to fully appreciate the long-term impact of the ruling. We are also still far from reaching any kind of consensus about the correctness of the Court’s decision. For the moment, […]
The Health Care Case: The Supreme Court’s Decision and its Implications – Now Available for Pre-ordering
By Ilya Somin on May 2, 2013 11:30 am in Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Necessary and Proper
The Health Care Case: The Supreme Court’s Decision and its Implications – A new book on last year’s controversial Supreme Court decision on Obamacare is now available for pre-order at Amazon. The book is edited by Columbia law professors Nathaniel Persily, Gillian Metzger, and Trevor Morrison, and published by Oxford University Press. It contains essays […]
Why Did Law Professors Misunderestimate the Lawsuits against PPACA?
I quite enjoyed reading David Hyman’s new article of this title. It vividly illustrates a point that I tried to make three weeks ago at the Intellectual Diversity Conference at Harvard Law School (Panel 2 – 47:00) — which is that the liberal echo chamber of elite law schools has made them startlingly poor at […]
My Review of Einer Elhauge’s Obamacare on Trial
By Ilya Somin on March 11, 2013 4:45 pm in Commerce Clause, Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Necessary and Proper
The Liberty Law Blog recently posted my review of Harvard Law Professor Einer Elhauge’s book Obamacare on Trial, which was possibly the first academic book on the Obamacare litigation published by a legal scholar since the Supreme Court issued its decision in NFIB v. Sebelius. Elhauge is a topnotch scholar, and his book makes some […]
Comstock, Bond and Predictions About the Individual Mandate Case
By Ilya Somin on February 22, 2013 11:54 pm in Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Necessary and Proper
In his recent response to Randy Barnett, co-blogger Orin Kerr argues that previous precedent, especially the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in United States v. Comstock justifiably led many observers to expect that the Court would readily uphold the individual health insurance mandate, and that its failure to do so under the Commerce and Necessary and […]
Here Comes “Mandate Plus”
The point of the individual mandate was to counteract the adverse selection problem caused by community rating and the requirement that insurance companies issue insurance policies without regard for preexisting conditions. The mandate — or, as we now know it, the tax on being uninsured — provides an incentive for younger, healthier (and less costly […]
The Uniformity Clause – Another ObamaCare Challenge?
In NFIB v. Sebelius the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate penalty as a constitutional exercise of the federal taxing power. Although little of the briefing (and even less of the oral argument) considered the question, the Court concluded the penalty did not constitute a “direct tax.” This conclusion was necessary to sustain the penalty […]