October 3, 2011
The Obama administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of the 2010 healthcare law, meaning a final ruling on the president’s signature legislative achievement is now likely by next summer.
The Justice Department said earlier this week that it had decided against asking the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta to take up a challenge to the healthcare law. A three-member panel of that court decided in a 2-1 ruling last month that Congress overstepped its authority by mandating that virtually all Americans purchase health insurance.
Other appeals courts have upheld the law and, with much still to be done to implement the law by 2014, the administration is anxious for a final up-or-down ruling.
"The Department has consistently and successfully defended this law in several courts of appeals, and only the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled it unconstitutional," the Justice Department said in a statement. "Throughout history, there have been similar challenges to other landmark legislation such as the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act, and all of those challenged failed. We believe the challenges to the Affordable Care Act – like this one in the 11th Circuit – will also ultimately fail and that the Supreme Court will uphold the law."
The Atlanta court’s majority ruling called the law's individual mandate provision "a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority." The administration has argued that such power is vested in the commerce clause of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce.
Source: ASAE Inroads, September 29, 2011
Source: ASAE Inroads, September 29, 2011
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