{"id":17623,"date":"2012-06-28T10:40:25","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T15:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=17623"},"modified":"2012-06-28T12:21:21","modified_gmt":"2012-06-28T17:21:21","slug":"victory-for-obamacare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2012\/06\/victory-for-obamacare\/","title":{"rendered":"Victory For ObamaCare!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius<\/a><\/em> is a victory for the supporters of the Affordable Care Act, and a fairly broad vindication for the constitutionality of the law.\u00a0 Here are my initial thoughts:<\/p>\n

This is a big win for the Obama Administration.\u00a0 The only portion of the law struck down is the Medicaid expansion provision, on the grounds that Congress cannot threaten to take away funds previously granted to the States if the States fail to accept new conditions.\u00a0 This strikes me as a fairly reasonable gloss on the case of South Dakota v. Dole<\/em> and, at the same time, a constitutional interpretation that still allows Congress a fair amount of flexibility to attach conditions to the receipt of new federal dollars.<\/p>\n

I am not persuaded by Justice Robert\u2019s argument rejecting Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause.\u00a0 It strikes me as\u00a0primarily conclusory rather than analytical, and my initial reaction is that it should be considered dicta since Justice Roberts\u00a0upholds the ACA on other grounds.\u00a0 Of course, I have already made clear that I am inclined to agree with Justice Ginsburg that the Court’s precedent under the Commerce Clause\u00a0provides ample support for the ACA’s constitutionality, as I argued in previous posts here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nor am I convinced by Robert\u2019s tax argument.\u00a0 He labors a great deal to make the case that the ACA does not impose a “tax” for purposes of the statutory Ant-Injunction Act but nonetheless imposes a “tax” under Congress’ constitutional taxing authority.<\/p>\n

It appears to me that Roberts tried to split the baby in a statesman-like way, by giving victory to Obama but by using reasoning and language designed to placate President Obama\u2019s critics.\u00a0 Am I the only person who read Justice Robert’s opinion and thought of\u00a0Marbury v. Madison<\/em>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius is a victory for the supporters of the Affordable Care Act, and a fairly broad vindication for the constitutionality of the law.\u00a0 Here are my initial thoughts: This is a big win for the Obama Administration.\u00a0 The only portion of the law struck down is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,80,126,60,68,122,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-regulation","category-constitutional-interpretation","category-constitutional-law","category-health-care","category-judges-judicial-process","category-public","category-us-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}