1. Does the Constitution authorize Congress to mandate that individuals must maintain a minimum level of health insurance or else pay a tax penalty?
2. If the individual mandate is unconstitutional, is the entire Act invalid?
3. Did Congress violate the rights of states under the Tenth Amendment when it mandated expansion of the Medicaid program to include persons with incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty limit and a minimum essential level of coverage?
4. Do federal courts lack jurisdiction to enjoin enforcement of the individual mandate?

The Court will hear argument on these issues in March and likely will issue a decision by the end of June. The Court has set aside an unprecedented 5½ hours for argument on these questions, which came to it as the result of a 2-1 decision issued in August by the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit. The court of appeals’ majority said that the individual mandate provision was unconstitutional, but that it was severable from the remainder of the Act, and that the expansion of Medicaid was within Congress’s powers. The federal government appealed the ruling on the individual mandate; a group of 26 states’ Attorneys General, including Washington’s, appealed the Medicaid ruling; and a business group appealed the severability decision. The jurisdictional question was not decided by the 11th Circuit but, at the suggestion of the Government, the Supreme Court directed the parties to address it.

Contacts

If you have any questions regarding this decision, please contact Mike Madden at mmaden@bbllaw.com or 206.622.5511