Constitutional challenges to the Affordable Care Act
Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), there have been numerous actions in federal courts to challenge the constitutionality of the legislation.
Their release repeated the claim challenging the federal requirement under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage.
The Necessary and Proper Clause confers supplemental authority only when the means adopted to accomplish an enumerated power are 'appropriate', are 'plainly adapted to that end', and are 'consistent with the letter and spirit of the constitution.'
[10] In February 2011, Alexander Bolton wrote in The Hill that consensus among legal experts largely changed following Judge Roger Vinson's decision in Florida et al v. United States Department of Health and Human Services.
Bolton said that prior to the ruling, it was widely felt that the Supreme Court would uphold the law by a comfortable margin, but now legal scholars generally feel it would be a 5–4 decision.
[17] Almost immediately after the passage of the ACA, the Virginia state legislature passed a law that purported to nullify the individual mandate provision of the federal Act.
[19] Cuccinelli filed a counter-motion on June 7, rebutting federal claims and asserting that health insurance was not commerce as intended by the Constitution, and, thus, was not subject to regulation by Congress.
On November 30, 2010, U.S. District Court Judge Norman K. Moon, who sits in Virginia, also declared the individual mandate constitutional in Liberty University v. Geithner.
He rejected the challengers' basic argument that Congress had no authority to order someone to give up their own desire not to buy a commercial product and force them into a market they do not want to enter.
[28]On February 22, 2011, Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, rejected a challenge to the law in Mead v. Holder by five individuals who argued, among other things, that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and that the individual mandate exceeded Congress's power under the Interstate Commerce Clause.
[29][30] On October 8, 2010, U.S. District Court Judge George Caram Steeh in Thomas More Law Center v. Obama wrote that in his view the ACA, including the individual mandate, was constitutional.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh dissented, stating that the Tax Anti-Injunction Act precluded the court from hearing the case until after the individual mandate took effect.
The Supreme Court indeed heard oral arguments regarding the Tax Anti-Injunction Act, ultimately unanimously ruling (though with differing rationales) that it did not apply to this case.
[48] According to the Goldwater Institute, the board "will be able to dictate how much doctors can charge for medical care, how insurance companies will pay for it, and when patients can get access to cutting-edge treatments.
"[49] The litigants argued that because these decisions could not be reviewed by Congress or the courts, the health care legislation violated the separation of powers doctrine.
[52] A lawsuit entitled United States House of Representatives v. Price (previously Burwell) was filed in late 2014 concerning the cost-sharing program and implementation of the law.
The case was eventually settled before the Court of Appeals in D.C.[53] In February 2018, 20 states, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, filed a lawsuit against the federal government alleging the ACA is now unconstitutional because the individual mandate tax which NFIB v. Sebelius rested on was repealed by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
[55] In March 2018, in a suit brought by Texas and other states, Judge Reed O'Connor of the Northern District of Texas ruled against the imposition of a federal tax on states as a condition of continuing to receive Medicaid funds, ruling that while the tax was lawful, the regulation implementing it violated the nondelegation doctrine and the Administrative Procedure Act.
[58][59] In September 2022, the same district court judge, Reed O'Connor, ruled that the legal requirements to cover HIV-prevention drugs, as prescribed by section 1001(5) of the Affordable Care Act, violate the Constitution of the United States.
