{"id":1052,"date":"2012-03-30T21:00:53","date_gmt":"2012-03-31T01:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=1052"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:23:41","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:23:41","slug":"more-on-the-affordable-care-act-arguments-commerce-clause-angles-from-the-amici","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2012\/03\/30\/more-on-the-affordable-care-act-arguments-commerce-clause-angles-from-the-amici\/","title":{"rendered":"More on the Affordable Care Act Arguments \u2014 Commerce Clause Angles from the Amici"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Anne King<\/em><\/p>\n

Back when the Supreme Court granted cert in the Affordable Care Act cases, there was much speculation on how, precisely, the Justices would view the minimum coverage provision of the statute under the Commerce Clause power.\u00a0 In two earlier posts (here\u00a0and\u00a0here), I highlighted several interesting (and less discussed) angles on the Commerce Clause discussed in three of the amicus briefs submitted in the Courts of Appeals cases.\u00a0 Those same amici \u2013 a group of states supporting ACA, plus the National Women\u2019s Law Center (NWLC)* and the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), both on behalf of a number of organizations \u2013 also chimed in once the litigation reached the Supreme Court<\/p>\n

As David Yin wrote\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0earlier this week, it\u2019s debatable whether the Justices\u2019 questioning at this week\u2019s oral arguments reveal much about the ultimate decision.\u00a0 Yet I was interested to see whether the amici\u2019s Commerce Clause angles would crop up.\u00a0 Amicus briefs arguably have greater significance in a case of this complexity, because they permit exposition of important legal and policy arguments outside the primary scope of the parties\u2019 briefs.
\n
\nMaryland and a group of several other states submitted a\u00a0brief\u00a0\u00a0<\/a>offering the perspective that health care is amenable to Commerce Clause regulation because it is a national problem \u201cthat is not fully susceptible to state-by-state solutions.\u201d\u00a0 As the Maryland brief explained, \u201cthe interconnectedness of state economies imposes practical restrictions on the range of policy choices open to individual states and also limits the efficacy of any solution chosen by a state that departs substantially from policies adopted by other states.\u201d\u00a0 The Maryland brief also described the problems several states experienced after enacting health care reform without a minimum coverage provision \u2013 including increases in premium prices and insurance companies\u2019 withdrawal from the individual market.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Maryland\u2019s brief clearly had purchase with at least one member of the Court.\u00a0 Justice Ginsburg quoted a figure from the brief \u2013 that Maryland hospital bills are seven percent higher due to uncompensated care.\u00a0 And Solicitor General Verrilli also echoed the Maryland brief, noting, \u201cHere I think it\u2019s really impossible, in view of our history, to say that Congress is invading the state sphere.\u201d\u00a0 The government also cited several states\u2019 experience of rate increases and insurer withdrawals due to health reform measures that didn\u2019t incorporate a minimum coverage provision.\u00a0 And it\u2019s not surprising that both the Justices and the government would view the states\u2019 position as particularly relevant.<\/p>\n

The non-profits\u2019 briefs didn\u2019t appear to make an appearance in the arguments.\u00a0\u00a0NWLC\u2019s brief<\/a>\u00a0 offers an interesting legal argument, framing the ACA as a civil rights law designed to combat discrimination in the health care market against women and other disadvantaged groups.\u00a0 The brief analogizes to Commerce Clause decisions, such as\u00a0Heart of Atlanta Hotel<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Katzenbach v. McClung<\/em>, which upheld the civil rights statutes prohibiting race discrimination by hotels and other businesses.\u00a0 The\u00a0AAPD brief<\/a>\u00a0makes a policy argument connecting the minimum coverage and preexisting condition provisions of the ACA, pointing out the phenomenon of \u201cjob lock,\u201d which results when individuals \u201cforego a job opportunity because of fear that they will be uninsured of they leave their current job.\u201d\u00a0 And indeed, overall, the Justices\u2019 questioning strayed very little from the core legal arguments and barely addressed policy concerns.\u00a0 But I think, in the end, this tells us very little as to whether additional legal perspectives and policy considerations will shape the Court\u2019s opinion.<\/p>\n

*Disclosure: I formerly worked at NWLC \u2014 but I didn\u2019t take part in the amicus brief.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Anne King Back when the Supreme Court granted cert in the Affordable Care Act cases, there was much speculation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-gY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}