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Full-Text Articles in Law
Health Insurance And Federalism-In-Fact, Radha A. Pathak, Brendan S. Maher
Health Insurance And Federalism-In-Fact, Radha A. Pathak, Brendan S. Maher
Faculty Scholarship
The constitutional legitimacy of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) received substantial attention. Less examined has been the legislation’s sub-constitutional effect on the regulatory power that states can and might exercise. Regarding a state's ability to promulgate "sickness rules," (those legal rules pertaining to the conditions or treatment an insurance policy covers) and "non-sickness" rules (those legal rules pertaining to insurance other than sickness rules), we scrutinize the ACA itself and contrast it with the other most significant statute governing private health insurance, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”). The authors would like to thank …
Reframing Federalism — The Affordable Care Act (And Broccoli) In The Supreme Court, Wendy K. Mariner, George J. Annas, Leonard H. Glantz
Reframing Federalism — The Affordable Care Act (And Broccoli) In The Supreme Court, Wendy K. Mariner, George J. Annas, Leonard H. Glantz
Faculty Scholarship
The U.S. Supreme Court decision to uphold most of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the insurance-coverage requirement, allows historic reforms in the health care system to move forward. Because the justices were split four to four on whether the ACA was constitutional, Chief Justice John Roberts was able to write the lead opinion that commanded five votes for whatever outcome he determined was constitutional. The chief justice's leadership in upholding almost all of the ACA was unanticipated, as was much of his legal reasoning. It was widely assumed that the interpretation of the Commerce Clause by the Court would …
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 …
Some Thoughts On Health Care Exchanges: Choice, Defaults, And The Unconnected, Brendan S. Maher
Some Thoughts On Health Care Exchanges: Choice, Defaults, And The Unconnected, Brendan S. Maher
Faculty Scholarship
One feature of the ACA that appealed to observers across the political spectrum was the creation of health insurance “exchanges.” Among other things, exchanges are intended to aid consumers in making simple and transparent choices regarding the purchase of health insurance. This Article considers how exchanges might benefit from the use of “default” options — both online and off. Given the significant number of Americans that have limited or no Internet access, offline defaults may be an attractive way to promote coverage of the “unconnected.”
The Affordable Care Act Individual Coverage Requirement: Ways To Frame The Commerce Clause Issue, Wendy K. Mariner
The Affordable Care Act Individual Coverage Requirement: Ways To Frame The Commerce Clause Issue, Wendy K. Mariner
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
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 …
Cost-Benefit Federalism: Reconciling Collective Action Federalism And Libertarian Federalism In The Obamacare Litigation And Beyond, Abigail Moncrieff
Cost-Benefit Federalism: Reconciling Collective Action Federalism And Libertarian Federalism In The Obamacare Litigation And Beyond, Abigail Moncrieff
Faculty Scholarship
The lawsuits challenging Obamacare's individual mandate have exposed a rift in federalism theory. On one side of the divide is a view that the national government ought to intervene - and ought to be constitutionally permitted to intervene - whenever the states are "separately incompetent" to regulate. This is the view that Robert Cooter and Neil Siegel recently theorized as "collective action federalism." On the other side of the divide is a view that federalism exists for reasons other than efficiency of regulation and particularly that the Founders created the federal structure for the protection of individual liberty. According to …