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Does The Individual Mandate Coerce?, Raphael Boleslavsky, Sergio J. Campos Jan 2013

Does The Individual Mandate Coerce?, Raphael Boleslavsky, Sergio J. Campos

Articles

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act includes an individual mandate that penalizes individuals who do not purchase health insurance. Critics of the individual mandate, including a majority of justices on the Supreme Court, contend that Congress cannot use its Commerce Clause power to coerce individuals to buy a product. Supporters concede that the mandate coerces but argue that it is otherwise permissible under the Commerce Clause. This article questions whether the individual mandate coerces. It uses a simple economic model to show that, under certain conditions, the individual mandate induces insurers to sell health insurance at a price each …


The Anti-Leveraging Principle And The Spending Clause After Nfib, Samuel R. Bagenstos Jan 2013

The Anti-Leveraging Principle And The Spending Clause After Nfib, Samuel R. Bagenstos

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This Article offers an initial assessment of the Supreme Court’s Spending Clause holding in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (NFIB), which addressed the constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act. As Justice Ginsburg pointed out, NFIB marks “the first time ever” that the Court has held that a spending condition unconstitutionally coerced the states. The implications of that holding are potentially massive, and some of the language in the decision, if read broadly, would seriously threaten the constitutionality of a broad swath of federal spending legislation. Notwithstanding some of the Court’s language, this Article contends that the case …