Constitutional Challenge to Health Care Mandate: Complaint

 Within ten minutes of President Obama’s signing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, available as large download here, thirteen states through their state attorney generals filed a complaint in the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola Division, challenging the constitutionality of the statute.

The states - - - Florida, South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, Michigan, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Washington, Idaho, and South Dakota - - -  contend that the Act “greatly alters the federal-state relationship, to the detriment of the states, with respect to Medicaid programs specifically and healthcare coverage generally” (para 39).  

Count One, entitled “Unconstitutional Exercise of Federal Power and Violation of The Tenth Amendment (Const. Art. I & Amend. X)”  alleges both that the Act exceeds Congressional power under Art I sec 8; the “taxing and Spending Clause”; or “any other provision of the Constitution” (para 56), and that the Act violates the Tenth Amendment.

Count Two, entitled “Violation of Constitutional Prohibition of Unapportioned Capitation or Direct Tax
(Const. Art. I, §§ 2, 9)” alleges that the tax penalty on uninsured persons “constitutes a capitation and a direct tax that is not apportioned among the states.”

Count Three, entitled “Unconstitutional Mandate That All Individuals Have Health Insurance Coverage Or Pay Tax Penalty (Const. Art. I & Amend. X)”  alleges:

The Act is directed to a lack of or failure to engage in activity that is driven by the choices of individual Americans. Such inactivity by its nature cannot be deemed to be in commerce or to have any substantial effect on commerce, whether interstate or otherwise. As a result, the Act cannot be upheld under the Commerce Clause, Const. art. I, § 8. The Act infringes upon Plaintiffs’ interests in protecting the freedom, public health, and welfare of their citizens and their state fiscs, by coercing many persons to enroll in Medicaid at a substantial cost to Plaintiffs; and denies Plaintiffs their sovereign ability to confer rights upon their citizens and residents to make healthcare decisions without government interference, including the decision not to participate in any healthcare insurance program or scheme, in violation of the Tenth Amendment (para 65).

The fourth and final count seeks declaratory judgment based on the previous allegations.

For pedagogical purposes, the Complaint could be used as an in class exercise in a Constitutional Law course, perhaps using some of the materials available from the Federalist Society here to write a memo in support of the complaint, as well our previous discussions here and here.  It might also be useful for a Constitutional Litigation seminar to engage in a redrafting of the Complaint or a drafting of an Answer.

RR