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Executive Power And The Aca, Nicholas Bagley

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As with any law of its complexity and ambition, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) vests in the sitting president broad implementation discretion. The law is not a blank check: in many ways both large and small, the ACA shapes and constrains the exercise of executive power. But Congress has neither the institutional resources nor the attention span to micromanage the rollout of a massive health program. It has no choice but to delegate.

Naturally, both President Obama and President Trump have drawn on their authority to tailor the ACA to their policy preferences. Neither president, however, has been able to …