On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will finalize its review of President Barack Obama’s health-care law, ObamaCare, by considering whether all of the law must fall if part of it is found unconstitutional, and whether the law’s proposed Medicaid expansion violates the federal-state partnership. The court’s Medicaid expansion decision might have the most lasting impact on the federal government’s ability to use its spending power to stress state action. The Supreme Court said there is a border to what the government can oblige states to do in order to receive federal funding. The Supreme Court said a condition cannot be “so coercive as to pass the point at which pressure turns into compulsion.” The court has not found a case where the federal government has gone too far.
In this case, there are 26 states challenging the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The states are protesting the law’s goal to open Medicaid, which is funded by both the state and federal to a larger share of the underclass. States are also arguing that it will cost them millions of dollars because the number of poor that will have to access the program in order to meet the law’s requirement that nearly all Americans must have health coverage by 2014. The government’s response is the law cannot be disproportionately compulsive because the federal government will pay the full cost of covering the newly eligible individuals through 2016. Also in 2020 and thereafter, the federal government will take 90 percent of the tab and states are allowed to drop out of Medicaid at any time. The main issue is the question as to what should happen to the remaining measures if the Supreme Court rules the individual insurance mandate is unconstitutional. Evaluating severability, the court’s precedents believe ObamaCare should preserve parts of the law that are constitutionally valid, capable of functioning independently, and consistent with Congress’ basic objectives in passing the statute.
