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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Argument That Wasn't' And 'King, Chevron, And The Age Of Textualism, Abigail Moncrieff
The Argument That Wasn't' And 'King, Chevron, And The Age Of Textualism, Abigail Moncrieff
Faculty Scholarship
In these two short essays, I examine the somewhat bizarre — and potentially harmful — ways that Chief Justice John Roberts escaped the tension between legalism and realism in King v. Burwell, the Court’s latest Obamacare case. King presented a close legalistic case but a slam-dunk realist case in favor of an IRS interpretation of Obamacare. Roberts opted for the realistic result, but he got there through a bizarre combination of legalistic maneuvers. In “The Argument that Wasn’t,” I note that Roberts refused to make the full legalistic argument in the government’s favor, ignoring an invocation of the constitutional avoidance …
Will Uncooperative Federalism Survive Nfib?, Abigail Moncrieff, Jonathan Dinerstein
Will Uncooperative Federalism Survive Nfib?, Abigail Moncrieff, Jonathan Dinerstein
Faculty Scholarship
In October Term 2012, the Supreme Court decided two cases that are fundamentally at odds: NFIB v. Sebelius and Douglas v. Independent Living Center of Southern California. In NFIB, the Court held that the federal government, at least under some circumstances, may not use the threat of reduced funding in cooperative federalism programs to require states to comply with federal statutory requirements. In Douglas, however, the Court indicated that private litigants should sue federal agencies under the Administrative Procedure Act if those agencies refuse to enforce federal statutory requirements against the states. The problem is that the withdrawal of funding …
Post-Reform Medicaid Before The Court: Discordant Advocacy Reflects Conflicting Attitudes, Nicole Huberfeld
Post-Reform Medicaid Before The Court: Discordant Advocacy Reflects Conflicting Attitudes, Nicole Huberfeld
Faculty Scholarship
The Supreme Court will decide two major Medicaid cases this term that raise major questions about the program and the tensions it creates between the federal government and the states. The Court heard oral arguments on October 3d in Douglas v. Independent Living Center, a dispute between California and its Medicaid providers regarding reimbursement cuts due to California’s budget crisis. The Medicaid providers argue that these proposed cuts are so extreme as to violate federal law and thus the Supremacy Clause. Their contention hinges on the Equal Access Provision of the Medicaid Act, which commands states to pay healthcare providers …
Safeguarding The Safeguards: The Aca Litigation And The Extension Of Structural Protection To Non-Fundamental Liberties, Abigail Moncrieff
Safeguarding The Safeguards: The Aca Litigation And The Extension Of Structural Protection To Non-Fundamental Liberties, Abigail Moncrieff
Faculty Scholarship
As the lawsuits challenging the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) have evolved, one feature of the litigation has proven especially rankling to the legal academy: the incorporation of substantive libertarian concerns into structural federalism analysis. The breadth and depth of scholarly criticism on this point is surprising, however, given that judges today frequently choose indirect methods for protecting substantive constitutional values, including structural and process-based methods of the kinds at issue in the ACA litigation. Indeed, indirection in the protection of constitutional liberties is a well-known and well-theorized strategy, which one scholar recently termed “semisubstantive review” and another …
Amici Curiae Brief In Support Of Petitioners Urging Reversal On The Minimum Coverage Provision Issue, Department Of Health And Human Services V. State Of Florida, Wendy Parmet, Lorianne Sainsbury-Wong
Amici Curiae Brief In Support Of Petitioners Urging Reversal On The Minimum Coverage Provision Issue, Department Of Health And Human Services V. State Of Florida, Wendy Parmet, Lorianne Sainsbury-Wong
Faculty Scholarship
This amicus brief was filed before the Supreme Court in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) litigation on behalf of Health Care for All and other Massachusetts organizations that have been involved in the implementation of Massachusetts’ health 2006 health reform legislation. The brief argues that Massachusetts’ health reform law, upon which the ACA is modeled, has been very effective in expanding insurance coverage within the State, but it required substantial federal support, through a Medicaid waiver, to achieve its success. In addition the Commonwealth’s experience illustrates that the health insurance and health care markets are inherently interstate commerce and that …
Obamacare's (3) Day(S) In Court, Abigail Moncrieff
Obamacare's (3) Day(S) In Court, Abigail Moncrieff
Faculty Scholarship
Before the oral arguments in late March, the vast majority of legal scholars felt confident that the Supreme Court of the United States would uphold the individual mandate against the constitutional challenge that twenty-six states have levied against it. Since the oral argument, that confidence has been severely shaken. This article asks why legal scholars were so confident before the argument and what has made us so concerned since the argument. The article posits that certain fundamental characteristics of health insurance - particularly its unusual role in steering healthcare consumption decisions, which distinguishes health insurance from standard kinds of indemnity …
The Supreme Court's Narrow View On Civil Rights, Jack M. Beermann
The Supreme Court's Narrow View On Civil Rights, Jack M. Beermann
Faculty Scholarship
The right to choose abortion, although recently significantly curtailed from its original scope,' is a federally protected liberty interest of women, and is at least protected against the imposition of "undue burdens" by state and local government.2 Some of the most serious threats to women's ability to choose abortion have come not from government regulation, but from private, national, organized efforts to prevent abortions. In addition to seeking change through the political system, some of these organizations, most notably Operation Rescue, have focused on the providers of abortion, and have attempted to prevent abortions by forcibly closing abortion clinics …