Post by Logan on Jan 19, 2016 23:56:23 GMT -6
The Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to take a third swing at the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. It was the right call because the case -- Sissel vs. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services -- was built on a fanciful vision of how Congress should operate.
Matt Sissel, an artist in Oregon, sued the federal government because he doesn't want to buy health insurance, as required by the ACA. When the Supreme Court upheld the law's individual mandate in 2012, Sissel's initial claims appeared to be dead. But with the help of the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, he found a clever way to assert a new challenge to the entire law.
Because the justices had found the individual mandate to be a valid exercise of Congress' power to tax (the mandate is enforced with tax penalties), Sissel claimed the ACA was a tax bill. And because the text of the law was written by the Senate, his lawyers argued, it violated the clear constitutional requirement that tax legislation originate in the House.
Their position was rejected, however, by a district court judge, a three-judge appellate panel and the full Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which declined to reconsider the case last year. The Supreme Court denied Sissel's petition for certiorari Tuesday without comment.
Continued at www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-obamacare-supreme-court-origination-clause-20160119-story.html .
Matt Sissel, an artist in Oregon, sued the federal government because he doesn't want to buy health insurance, as required by the ACA. When the Supreme Court upheld the law's individual mandate in 2012, Sissel's initial claims appeared to be dead. But with the help of the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, he found a clever way to assert a new challenge to the entire law.
Because the justices had found the individual mandate to be a valid exercise of Congress' power to tax (the mandate is enforced with tax penalties), Sissel claimed the ACA was a tax bill. And because the text of the law was written by the Senate, his lawyers argued, it violated the clear constitutional requirement that tax legislation originate in the House.
Their position was rejected, however, by a district court judge, a three-judge appellate panel and the full Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which declined to reconsider the case last year. The Supreme Court denied Sissel's petition for certiorari Tuesday without comment.
Continued at www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-obamacare-supreme-court-origination-clause-20160119-story.html .