Articles

What happens if the individual mandate is struck down?

May 21, 2010 | By LUKE WAKE

Let us suppose that at the end of the day the Individual Mandate provision of the new health care legislation is struck down as unconstitutional. What have we accomplished? For starters we will have won a Commerce Clause challenge, which would be noteworthy in itself. This would make clear that there are real limitations on the … ...

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Update on oral arguments in Virginia's challenge to the PPACA

October 18, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Luke A. Wake   Today the federal district court for the Eastern District of Virginia heard oral arguments on a summary judgment motion in Virginia’s challenge to the new health care law. PLF has filed a brief in support of Virginia’s challenge to the individual mandate provision on behalf of Americans for Free Cho ...

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New article dismantles government's Obamacare taxing power argument

November 17, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Daniel Himebaugh In 2009, before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (colloquially, "Obamacare") became law, President Obama was asked whether a monetary penalty assessed against people who do not buy government-approved health insurance is a "tax."  The president, perhaps recalling his campaign pl ...

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Did the Founders support a national health care mandate?

January 25, 2011 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Joshua Thompson While I was looking through my Facebook account last night, I stumbled upon a post from a law school friend of mine that suggested that the Founders supported a health care mandate.  His post revolved around a law passed (and signed by President John Adams) in 1798, titled, "An Act for the … ...

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Obamacare versus the Constitution

July 08, 2011 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author:  Paul J. Beard II My essay, entitled "ObamaCare v. the Constitution," appears in the current issue of The Objective Standard, an excellent quarterly journal of culture and politics.  Written with the layperson in mind, the essay describes the primary legal defects with Obamacare in the context o ...

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Obamacare : the power to spend must have limits

January 16, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Today, Pacific Legal Foundation, along with the Claremont Institute and the Cato Institute, filed this brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in the Obamacare lawsuits. The brief focuses on the federal government’s power to give states money in exchange for them agreeing to do what the federal government wants them to do. In this case, … ...

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Reason.tv on three Supreme Court cases to watch

January 26, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Reason.tv focuses on three of this term’s big Supreme Court cases, including the Obamacare lawsuits and Sackett v. EPA. … ...

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Still more oral argument for Obamacare?

February 07, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

That’s what the U.S. Solicitor General is requesting, in a pleading filed today. The Supreme Court has already set three days for oral argument—which as far as I can tell hasn’t happened in at least a century—but now the parties are requesting that the justices hear an hour and a half of argument on the … ...

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The Obama Administration’s legal theory of the day : now it’s not a tax

February 15, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

You’ll remember that supporters of the Individual Mandate at first conceded that it was not a tax…and then changed their minds when some judges showed an interest in it, and ruled that the Mandate is a tax, so that federal courts lack jurisdiction to review its constitutionality. Today, however, Jeffrey Zients, acting director of the Offic ...