Health Care Reform

Supreme Court Upholds Health Care Reform
The United States Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision on the constitutionality of Health Care Reform and voted 5-4 to uphold Health Care Reform. The Court stated "[o]ur precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in Section 5000A under the taxing power, and that Section 5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. This is sufficient to sustain it."


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In an important side development to the main pieces of Health Care Reform, the Medicaid provisions have been limited but upheld providing funding for the majority of the State pieces of Health Care Reform. The Court stated "[n]othing in our opinion precludes Congress from offering funds under the ACA to expand the availability of health care, and requiring that states accepting such funds comply with the conditions on their use. What Congress is not free to do is to penalize States that choose not to participate in that new program by taking away their existing Medicaid funding."

The individual mandate, the most controversial piece of Health Care Reform, was upheld not as a commerce clause regulation power by the Federal Government, but rather as a "tax," something the Democratic administration was loathe to discuss publicly, but argued in its legal strategy that Health Care Reform was a tax, something sure to arise on the campaign trail for the 2012 Election.

What this means for employers in the short term is that absent a legislative overhaul, Health Care Reform marches forward nearly completely intact toward its January 1, 2014 effective date of the meat of its provisions.

Robertson, Jeff. "Supreme Court Upholds Health Care Reform." Barran Liebman. 28 June 2012.