Health Insurance Politics in Federal Court

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-30-2010

ISSN

0028-4793

Publisher

Massachusetts Medical Society

Language

en-US

Abstract

Having been outmaneuvered in Congress with the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Affordable Care Act,” or ACA), Republicans have taken their case to federal court, arguing that the law's key provision, the individual mandate to purchase health insurance, is unconstitutional. This argument has been made most prominently by attorneys general from 20 states in a Florida federal court and by the Commonwealth of Virginia in a Virginia federal court. In early August, federal district court judge Henry Hudson decided that the Virginia challenge deserves a hearing,1 thereby giving the constitutional argument an aura of respectability and ensuring that we'll hear more about the meaning of states' rights in the context of the Constitution's Commerce Clause (which grants Congress the authority to regulate interstate commerce), both in court and on the campaign trail.

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