The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was designed to increase health insurance quality and affordability, lower the uninsured rate by expanding insurance coverage, and reduce the costs of healthcare overall. Along with sweeping change came sweeping criticisms and issues. This book explores the pros and cons of the Affordable Care Act, and explains who benefits from the ACA. Readers will learn how the economy is affected by the ACA, and the impact of the ACA rollout.
The Affordable Care Act debate was one of the most important and most public examinations of the Constitution in our history. At the forefront of that debate were the bloggers of the Volokh Conspiracy who, from before the law was even passed, engaged in a spirited, erudite, and accessible discussion of the legal issues involved in the case.
This short book analyzes the Obamacare case - focusing on many points the Supreme Court was never told about - including the fact that the constitutional framers themselves had approved mandates to buy health insurance! "Anyone who cares about the Supreme Court's approach to constitutional issues - and especially about the claims of some Justices that they try to follow the Constitution's original meaning - must read Einer Elhauge's devastating analysis of what all nine Justices, and the hundreds of advocates whose briefs and arguments they studied, simply failed to take into account when the Supreme Court decided the Health Care Case of 2012. No history of that decision will be complete unless it includes this brilliant and eminently readable little book - a book that deserves to become an instant classic." - Laurence H. Tribe, Harvard Law Professor, leading constitutional law scholar, acclaimed Supreme Court advocate, and author of many books, including the highly influential treatise, American Constitutional Law. "An illuminating analysis of the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare that offers rigor and insight, written by a brilliant legal mind." - Amy Chua, Yale Law Professor and author of World on Fire, Days of Empire, and Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. "Einer Elhauge is the single best and most incisive commentator on the constitutionality of the individual mandate and the Affordable Care Act more generally. His gathering of precedent and penetrating analysis will convince you that much of the Court's arguments were mistaken." - Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania Professor and Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, former Special Advisor for Health Policy to the Obama White House OMB, New York Times columnist, and author of many books on health care. "Elhauge asked a brilliant and devastatingly simple question of the Supreme Court's so-called 'originalists.' They simply ignored it. This beautiful book tells a story history won't forget." - Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law Professor, and leading scholar and author of many books on Constitutional Law and Internet Law. "Einer Elhauge brings to the debate over the individual mandate an extraordinary combination of skills: he is deeply knowledgeable about health policy, and he is also a terrific lawyer. This book is the result of his exceptional insight, and it demonstrates why the attacks on the health care reform law were so utterly misguided. Anyone who wants to understand this chapter in our history should read this book." - David Strauss, University of Chicago Law Professor, author of The Living Constitution, and leading constitutional law scholar who has argued 18 cases before the Supreme Court. "Elhauge's lucid account of the battle over health care mandates seeks answers to important questions wherever they may lie, without letting policy preferences or political ideology drive outcomes. That's a rare and refreshing approach. He re-inspires confidence in the notion that the Constitution's principles can unite people with disparate views, rather than being bent by a bare majority to whatever preordained task is at hand." - Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard Law Professor, co-director of the Berkman Center, and author of The Future of the Internet -- And How to Stop It.
An incisive biography of the Supreme Court's enigmatic Chief Justice, taking us inside the momentous legal decisions of his tenure so far. John Roberts was named to the Supreme Court in 2005 claiming he would act as a neutral umpire in deciding cases. His critics argue he has been anything but, pointing to his conservative victories on voting rights and campaign finance. Yet he broke from orthodoxy in his decision to preserve Obamacare. How are we to understand the motives of the most powerful judge in the land? In The Chief, award-winning journalist Joan Biskupic contends that Roberts is torn between two, often divergent, priorities: to carry out a conservative agenda, and to protect the Court's image and his place in history. Biskupic shows how Roberts's dual commitments have fostered distrust among his colleagues, with major consequences for the law. Trenchant and authoritative, The Chief reveals the making of a justice and the drama on this nation's highest court.
This book makes the radical claim that rather than interpreting the Constitution from on high, the Court should be reflecting popular will--or the wishes of the people themselves.
The Supreme Court's decision in the Health Care Case, NFIB v. Sebelius, gripped the nation's attention during the spring of 2012. This volume gathers together reactions to the decision from an ideologically diverse selection of the nation's leading scholars of constitutional, administrative, and health law.
The U.S. Constitution found in school textbooks and under glass in Washington is not the one enforced today by the Supreme Court. In Restoring the Lost Constitution, Randy Barnett argues that since the nation's founding, but especially since the 1930s, the courts have been cutting holes in the original Constitution and its amendments to eliminate the parts that protect liberty from the power of government. From the Commerce Clause, to the Necessary and Proper Clause, to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, to the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court has rendered each of these provisions toothless. In the process, the written Constitution has been lost. Barnett establishes the original meaning of these lost clauses and offers a practical way to restore them to their central role in constraining government: adopting a "presumption of liberty" to give the benefit of the doubt to citizens when laws restrict their rightful exercises of liberty. He also provides a new, realistic and philosophically rigorous theory of constitutional legitimacy that justifies both interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning and, where that meaning is vague or open-ended, construing it so as to better protect the rights retained by the people. As clearly argued as it is insightful and provocative, Restoring the Lost Constitution forcefully disputes the conventional wisdom, posing a powerful challenge to which others must now respond. This updated edition features an afterword with further reflections on individual popular sovereignty, originalist interpretation, judicial engagement, and the gravitational force that original meaning has exerted on the Supreme Court in several recent cases.
An expanded version of a series of debates between the authors, this book examines the nature of corporate rights, especially with respect to religious liberty, in the context of the controversial Hobby Lobby case from the Supreme Court's 2013-14 term.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) remains vulnerable to repeal, largely because Congress and the Supreme Court have granted each state the power to veto major provisions of the law before they take effect in 2014. The PPACA itself empowers states to block the employer mandate, to exempt many of their low- and middle-income taxpayers from the individual mandate, and to reduce federal deficit spending, simply by not establishing a health insurance "exchange." To date, 34 states have refused to create Exchanges and some 16 states have announced they would not expand their Medicaid programs. Yet the Obama administration is trying to coerce states into implementing parts of the expansion that the Court rendered optional. This special White Paper provides a comprehensive review of the process now occurring between states and the Obama Administration, underscoring how a critical mass of states exercising their vetoes over Exchanges and the Medicaid expansion can force Congress to reconsider, and hopefully repeal, the rest of the PPACA.
