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King, Chevron, And The Age Of Textualism, Abigail R. Moncrieff
King, Chevron, And The Age Of Textualism, Abigail R. Moncrieff
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
In the King v. Burwell oral arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts—usually one of the more active members of the Court—asked only one substantive question, addressed to the Solicitor General: "If you're right about Chevron [deference applying to this case], that would indicate that a subsequent administration could change [your] interpretation?" As it turns out, that question was crucial to Roberts's thinking and to the 6-3 opinion he authored, but almost all commentators either undervalued or misunderstood the question's import (myself included). The result of Roberts's actual thinking was an unfortunate outcome for Chevron—and potentially for the rule of law—despite …
The Individual Mandate As Health Care Regulation: What The Obama Administration Should Have Said In Nfib V. Sebelius, Abigail R. Moncrieff
The Individual Mandate As Health Care Regulation: What The Obama Administration Should Have Said In Nfib V. Sebelius, Abigail R. Moncrieff
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
There was an argument that the Obama Administration's lawyers could have made—but didn't—in defending Obamacare 's individual mandate against constitutional attack. That argument would have highlighted the role of comprehensive health insurance in steering individuals' healthcare savings and consumption decisions. Because consumer-directed healthcare, which reaches its apex when individuals self-insure, suffers from several known market failures and because comprehensive health insurance policies play an unusually aggressive regulatory role in attempting to correct those failures, the individual mandate could be seen as an attempt to eliminate inefficiencies in the healthcare market that arise from individual decisions to self-insure. This argument would …
Cost-Benefit Federalism: Reconciling Collective Action Federalism And Libertarian Federalism In The Obamacare Litigation And Beyond, Abigail R. Moncrieff
Cost-Benefit Federalism: Reconciling Collective Action Federalism And Libertarian Federalism In The Obamacare Litigation And Beyond, Abigail R. Moncrieff
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
This Article argues that most commentators have exaggerated all three of the relevant issues with Obamacare: its efficiency gains, its liberty costs, and its departure from the status quo ante's federalist balance. The collective action problem with state insurance regulation is not as bad as scholars of collective action federalism have argued; the liberty implications of the individual mandate are not as extreme as scholars of libertarian federalism have argued; and the shift from state to national power is not as significant as the litigants and courts have argued. Although I do not make the strong claim that Obamacare reaches …