Health Care Reformers
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By Sam Baker – The over-arching question before the court is whether the law’s individual mandate is constitutional. But that’s a complicated question, and the two sides of the case don’t even agree about how best to ask it.
Here are five questions that could shape the court’s ruling:
- Is this about healthcare or health insurance?
- Where do the mandates stop?
- What constitutes an “activist” approach?
- What happened to the Necessary and Proper Clause?
- Why does the mandate exist?
While framing the mandate as a way to regulate the healthcare market, the government says the purpose of the mandate is to crack down on “free riders” — uninsured people who go to the hospital and can’t pay their bills, passing the cost of their care on to taxpayers and people with insurance.
But if that’s the idea, Chief Justice John Roberts asked, shouldn’t people be able to satisfy the mandate with a policy that only covers catastrophic care? more> http://is.gd/HOMc8p
Related articles
- Rough day for Obama healthcare law: Kennedy among mandate skeptics (theneteconomy.wordpress.com)
- Justices seem split over striking down healthcare law as arguments end (theneteconomy.wordpress.com)
- Will the Supreme Court’s Healthcare Ruling Impact Massachusetts? (bostinno.com)
- Did the Supreme Court Tip Their Hand on Healthcare Ruling? (usnews.com)
- Supreme Arrogance (thedailybeast.com)
- Obama’s lawyer to Supremes: Save the healthcare law (capitolhillblue.com)
- Does ObamaCare’s Essential Benefits Regulation Undermine the Case for the Mandate? (reason.com)
- Supreme Court, healthcare and American exceptionalism (actionforbetterhealthcare.com)
- Why the Supreme Court Justices Won’t Be Crudely Political When They Rule on Obamacare, William A. Galston, Brookings
- What I Saw at the Supreme Court’s Hearing on the Health Care Law, Henry J. Aaron, Brookings
- The Second Day of the Supreme Court’s Hearing on the Health Care Law, Henry J. Aaron, Brookings
- The Final Day of Legal Arguments over the Health Care Law, Henry J. Aaron, Brookings
- The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Brookings Institution
