Otto I Believe you need to read this.
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 26–28, 2012
Decided June 28, 2012
Full case name National Federation of Independent Business, et al. v. Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al.; Department of Health and Human Services, et al. v. Florida, et al.; Florida, et al. v. Department of Health and Human Services, et al.
Docket nos. 11-393
11-398
11-400
Citations 567
U.S. 519 (
more)
132 S. Ct. 2566; 183
L. Ed. 2d 450; 2012
U.S. LEXIS4876; 80 U.S.L.W. 4579; 2012-2 U.S. Tax Cas. (
CCH) ¶ 50,423; 109 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 2563; 53 Employee Benefits Cas. (
BNA) 1513; 23 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 480
Argument
Prior history Act declared unconstitutional sub. nom.
Florida ex rel. Bondi v. US Dept. of Health and Human Services, 780
F.Supp.2d 1256 (
N.D. Fla.2011); Affirmed and reversed in parts, 648
F.3d 1235 (
11th Cir. 2011); Certiorari granted, 565 U.S. ___ (2011)
Holding
(1) The
Tax Anti-Injunction Act does not apply because the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)'s labeling of the
individual mandate as a "penalty" instead of a "tax" precludes it from being treated as a tax under the Anti-Injunction Act.
(2) The individual mandate provision of the ACA functions constitutionally as a tax, and is therefore a valid exercise of Congress's
taxing power. (3) Congress exceeded its Spending Clause authority by
coercing states into a transformative change in their Medicaid programs by threatening to revoke all of their Medicaid funding if they did not participate in the Medicaid expansion, which would have an excessive impact on a state's budget. Congress may withhold from states refusing to comply with the ACA's Medicaid expansion provision only the additional funding for Medicaid provided under the ACA.
[1]
Eleventh Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part.
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Roberts
Associate Justices
Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy
Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan
Case opinions
Majority Roberts (parts I, II, III-C), joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan
Concurrence Roberts (part IV), joined by Breyer, Kagan
Concurrence Roberts (parts III-A, III-B, III-D)
Concur/dissent Ginsburg, joined by Sotomayor; and Breyer, Kagan (parts I, II, III, IV)
Dissent Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito
Dissent Thomas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. I; 124
Stat. 119–1025 (
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act)
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012), was a
landmark[2][3][4] United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court upheld Congress' power to enact most provisions of the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly called Obamacare,
[5][6] and the
Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act(HCERA), including a requirement for most Americans to have health insurance by 2014.
[7][8] The Acts represented a major set of changes to the American health care system that had been the subject of highly contentious
debate, largely divided on
political party lines.
The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by
Chief Justice John Roberts, upheld by a vote of 5 to 4 the
individual mandateto buy health insurance as a constitutional exercise of Congress's
taxing power. A majority of the justices, including Chief Justice Roberts, agreed that the individual mandate was not a proper use of Congress's
Commerce Clause or
Necessary and Proper Clause powers, though they did not join in a single opinion. A majority of the justices also agreed that another challenged provision of the Act, a significant expansion of
Medicaid, was not a valid exercise of Congress's
spending power as it would coerce states to either accept the expansion or risk losing existing Medicaid funding.