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Death Panels And The Rhetoric Of Rationing, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard
Death Panels And The Rhetoric Of Rationing, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard
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This essay offers an explanation for the United States' continued resistance to universal health care as grounded in two taboos: taxation and rationing. Even we were willing to pay more in taxes to directly subsidize the cost of medical care for those in need, rather than our current system of indirect subsidization through private insurance risk-pooling and cost-shifting, we still would face the unavoidable reality of resource limitations. Attempts to limit resource consumption, however, have been strongly opposed, as evidenced by the "death panels" controversy. Governor Palin's grossly erroneous characterization of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) rendered …
Plunging Into Endless Difficulties: Medicaid And Coercion In National Federation Of Independent Business V. Sebelius, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard, Nicole Huberfield, Kevin Outterson
Plunging Into Endless Difficulties: Medicaid And Coercion In National Federation Of Independent Business V. Sebelius, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard, Nicole Huberfield, Kevin Outterson
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Of the four discrete questions before the Court in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the Medicaid expansion held the greatest potential for destabilization from both a statutory and a constitutional perspective. As authors of an amicus brief supporting the Medicaid expansion, and scholars with expertise in health law who have been cited by the Court, we show in this article why NFIB is likely to fulfill that promise.
For the first time in its history, the Court held federal legislation based upon the spending power to be unconstitutionally coercive. Chief Justice Roberts’ plurality (joined for future voting purposes …
The Rhetoric Hits The Road: State Resistance To Affordable Care Act Implementation, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard
The Rhetoric Hits The Road: State Resistance To Affordable Care Act Implementation, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard
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This paper provides an update and reanalysis of my previously published article, Rhetorical Federalism: The Value of State-Based Dissent to Federal Health Reform, 93 Hofstra Law Review 111 (2010). In Rhetorical Federalism, I made an affirmative case for the widespread trend of state resistance to the then-recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA). Before and immediately after ACA’s enactment, a significant number of states engaged in various forms of objection to the new federal Act, including but not limited to lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the individual insurance mandate. My article focused on five targets of …
An Essay On Originalism And The 'Individual Mandate': Rounding Out The Government’S Case For Constitutionality, Dan T. Coenen
An Essay On Originalism And The 'Individual Mandate': Rounding Out The Government’S Case For Constitutionality, Dan T. Coenen
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The Supreme Court now has under advisement the landmark federal health care law case. Much attention has focused on the law’s minimum coverage provision—or so-called “individual mandate” — and, in particular, its constitutionality under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. In a separate and much lengthier article, I offer two main observations about the arguments made to the Court on that issue. First, I show that the challengers of the minimum coverage provision emphasized originalist reasoning in their briefs and oral arguments, while the federal government did not. Second, I explain why — contrary to the impression …