Spending Clause

The concept of providing basic healthcare services to individuals in need has undergone an agonizing transition, from a luxury once only afforded by the affluent to a basic human right granted to citizens of every economic station, and the recently enacted Affordable Care Act (ACA) was designed to finalize this ethical evolution. Reflecting perhaps the bitter political enmity currently consuming the nation's once cherished democratic process, Republican legislatures in states throughout the union have bristled at the ACA's primary provisions, threatening all manner of procedural protestation as they attempt to delay and derail the bill's eventual implementation. One of the most intriguing aspects of the sprawling, thousand page law, however, has been the stipulation that individual states will be given a choice to either accept federal funding to expand their statewide Medicaid roster, or to forfeit all federal funding for that program in perpetuity. The role of government in monitoring and regulating the healthcare industry has been long debated, and the bitterly contested passage of President Obama's ACA, a law aimed at revising the country's health insurance system through the creating of a federal health insurance exchange to facilitate increased competition among insurers, has rekindled the debate over who holds the ultimate responsibility for regulating the care provided by hospitals, community clinics, and private practices.

Recently, the federal government has crossed the line in regards to its actual power. In passing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the federal government is essentially ignoring many vital sections of the Constitution that help keep it in check. These fundamental restrictions help prevent an abusive and tyrannical government. The fact that this law still remains in place today shows that these constitutional restrictions on the federal government no longer apply, and that the federal government essentially has unlimited power. This act is unconstitutional due to its violation of the Commerce Clause, the Tenth Amendment, and the Origination Clause.

What started out as a much needed revision of the Health Care System has turned into a total overhaul which was not passed with bipartisan agreement. This division is reflected not only in the government, but among the people of the United States as well. Polls are taken daily and most of them show that the vast majority of Americans do not want the Health Care Bill. Due to the larger part of America not wanting this bill and finding the bill itself unconstitutional, many states have now filed a lawsuit against the federal government. More than a dozen states that have filed suit against the government believe that this bill violates the Constitution and many more states are considering joining the lawsuits. Some of these contend that the Health Care Bill infringes upon the Tenth Amendment. This amendment states that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people"(Dethrick 1). This amendment declares that the states have the ability to implement their own decisions despite what the federal government says. This lawsuit will prove to be a long and costly battle. Regardless of the results of this litigation, undoubtedly, the country will remain divided on this issue for years to come.

As stated previously, the main opposition behind Obamacare is whether or not it is constitutional. The basis for its disapproval is in regards to how Obama and the federal government misuse the commerce clause, Article 1 Section 8 of the constitution, as a basis for constitutionality. According to Joe Wolverton, the commerce clause acts as a grant of authority to Congress to “regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states.” Using the commerce clause to allow for the passage of the act shows that “legislative nor executive branch of the national government is bothered by constitutional restrictions on their

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is a healthcare program created by president Obama’s administration. The goal of the Affordable Care Act is to make sure every United States citizen has health insurance. The Affordable Care Act provides “affordable” health insurance plans to citizens that do not have any and make about $15,000 a year. While the idea of providing health insurance to the millions of American’s that cannot afford it is great, everything comes at a cost. According to Emily Miller, Obamacare is causing people’s health insurance premiums to rise by around 1 to 9 percent (Miller 15-15). Not only are insurance premiums rising, but ever since the Supreme Court declared the Affordable Care Act constitutional approximately 20 tax hikes have been approved (Battersby). All the aforementioned reasons are helping pay for Obamacare. Although providing health insurance for people that cannot afford it is important, the Affordable Care Act should be revoked because it will hurt the economy.

The affordable care act (ACA) or the Obama health care reform has been a topic of great concern in today’s health care. In March 23rd 2010 President Obama signed the health care legistration (Obama Care) into law. The passage of the law affected different many issues in the lives of Americans. Socially, it was a great law due to the facts that individuals that cannot afford health care would have access to health care regardless of preexisting conditions and young adults benefits in staying longer under their parents insurance until age 26. Hence, economically, depending on the side of the table the individual chooses (republican or Democrat) there will be an increase in national debt because more people will be eligible for Medicaid (The National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare, 2012). According to Root (2012) the so-called Obama health care reform will be a tax imposed on the citizens of the United States, because it obliges people to actually buy insurance provided by the government, which is in a big violation of the commerce clause or the individual mandate threatens the foundation of contract law. American contract law rest on the principle of mutual assent. For example, if I hold a gun to your head and force you to sign a contract, no court of law will honor that document since I coerced you into signing it. Mutual assent must be present in order for a contract to be valid and binding (Markham, 2002).

On June 28, 2012, The Supreme Court ruled the Federal Government does not have the constitutional right to sanction an individual to buy health insurance, but declared that the states do have the right to place a tax on citizens that do not carry insurance. This ruling is in response to President Obama’s Patient Protection and Healthcare Act of 2010. Passed on March 23, 2010, President Obama’s Reform Act mandates Texas, as well as the nation, to provide Medicaid funding to all individuals that are uninsured by 2014. As well as expanding Medicaid, it will provide exchanges, which are pools of insurance companies a previously uninsured person can pick

As I watched the political speeches, it became apparent that this law had other, further reaching goals. This seems to be the first step in what Democrats have been trying for many years, single payer or nationalized healthcare. Much of the success of the ACA goals was dependent on states expanding Medicaid. Some states could not justify expanding a system that would cause more harm than good. According to many analyst including the Galen Institute (A not-for-profit health and tax policy research organization) who stated: “One reason why the anger over Obamacare has subsided somewhat could be that more than 70 significant changes have been made to the law since it was enacted in 2010—delaying, weakening, and eliminating some of its more onerous and burdensome provisions.” (Turner & Roy 2013) The law that is being implemented is not the one Congress passed. According to the Galen Institute, “at least 43 of the changes to the Affordable Care Act have been made unilaterally by the Obama administration, 24 have passed Congress and been signed into law by President Obama, and three were made by the Supreme Court, which had to rewrite the law to uphold it.”(Turner & Roy, 2013)

President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, into law on March 23rd 2010. Congress had tried for decades to pass health care reform, beginning with President Franklin Roosevelt. “Following President Obama’s inauguration, he used Democrat control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate to enact health care reform legislation, and granted the federal government control of over 16% of our nations economy” (Taylor 3). The law states that every American citizen is mandated to purchase health insurance. “If you choose not to obtain Health Insurance by January 2014, you will be penalized $95, or 1% of your income-whichever is greater” (Taylor 5). “The penalty rate for non-compliance will

Once Obamacare was passed into Law, more than half of the states joined together to file against the law stating it was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court agreed to 3 days of hearings to allow the states to share why they felt the law was unconstitutional. At the end of the 3 days the United States Supreme Court deemed the law constitutional. Then deemed that Congress had the power under the taxing clause and the Affordable Care Act moved into operation for all of the United States. Since that time the United States Supreme Court has deemed that President Obama has repeatedly plotted to increase the reach of his Executive Branch, and each time the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against him.

After being challenged in the Supreme Court, it was ruled that the individual mandate was protected under three provisions of the constitution: the commerce clause, the taxing and spending clause, and the necessary and proper clause (Somin). By evaluating the terms of these clauses, it is clear that the individual mandate fails to be represented in any of them. The commerce clause gives Congress the constitutional power of regulating interstate commerce. The individual mandate, however, is neither an interstate activity nor a commerce. This clause only gives Congress the power to regulate commerce that impacts the economy, it does not give the power to tax individuals who refuse to buy a product. The taxing and spending clause gives the government the power of taxation. But similar to the commerce clause argument, it does not give the government power to tax on an item that a person fails to buy. Lastly, the individual mandate was considered protected under the necessary and proper clause, which gives Congress the power to create laws that are necessary and proper for for carrying into execution. Health insurance is not a necessity for some people, and Congress does not have the power to assume that it is. By allowing Congress to assume that the individual mandate is necessary and proper, we are allowing them to assume that any mandate can fit under this

The Medicaid revisions and expansion under the ACA, exhibited the federal government overstepping their power as they tried to penalize any state governments in opposition of the expansion, consequently, taking away states’ power. The Medicaid Expansion Mandate would’ve compelled states to join due to the loss of federal funding towards Medicaid if they did not adhere to (Phi Le, par.40). The Supreme Court hearing allowed states to have a choice whether or not to participate in the expansion without a total loss of their Medicaid funding. In return, states who didn't participate wouldn’t receive additional funding that coupled with this mandate that required inclusion, extending coverage of those who were at “Income below or ar 133% federal

Facts of the Case- In March 2010, there came about multiple lawsuits that were merged into one case shortly after Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare (National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius). With the passing of this act it required U.S. citizen who did not already have health care through Medicaid, Medicare, corporate, or any government-sponsored source to get health care. Citizens who did not have any of the mentioned healthcare sources would be forced into buying into the federally funded healthcare. If they did not buy into the healthcare, there would be a strict penalty

: The primary issue in King v Burwell was the legality of subsidies that are issued by the IRS on behalf of the states that used federal health insurance exchanges. The plaintiffs in King filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which challenged the IRS on the basis that the ACA can authorize tax credits only for individuals who purchased insurance on state-established Exchanges (e.g., “Obama Care Facts”, para. 2). The plaintiffs argued that the IRS should not be allowed to interpret the law on their own. They wanted the Supreme Court to tell the IRS that they had to interpret the law in a certain way. Should the court have ruled against the plaintiffs, would have resulted in little to no change.

Frederick Thide’s article, “In Search of Limiting Principles: The Eleventh Circuit Invalidates the Individual Mandate in Florida v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,” appearing in the Boston College Law Review claims that Congress will be crippled in its “future efforts to set social welfare policy” (Thide 2012, 370) if the Supreme Court affirms the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s holding that “Congress exceeded its power under the commerce clause and necessary and proper clause by requiring individuals to purchase health insurance as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (359). In his introduction, Thide (2012) describes the economic conditions of the health insurance market that brought about the need for the Affordable Care Act and presents three main ideas to support his conclusion. As a final point, Thide (2012) warns that rejecting “the view that Congress is the primary arbiter of what is necessary and proper,” (370) under the necessary and proper clause, may “significantly constrain Congress’s power” (359) to develop and implement “novel regulatory schemes that include the use of economic mandates” (371).