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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia today (November 8th) upheld the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s (“ACA”) individual mandate provision. The court found that Congress has regulatory authority in the insurance market and that ACA is constitutional under the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause. However, the timing of the D.C. Circuit’s decision prevents the case from being considered by the Supreme Court when it meets on Thursday to discuss whether to take up any of the ACA lawsuits.
The majority addressed Congress’s regulatory authority in the insurance market and found that, “Broad regulation is an inherent feature of Congress’s constitutional authority in this area; to regulate complex, nationwide economic problems is to necessarily deal in generalities.” Further “The right to be free from federal regulation is not absolute, and yields to the imperative that Congress be free to forge national solutions to national problems, no matter how local–or seemingly passive–their individual origins.”
The court held that while the individual mandate is an “encroachment on individual liberty… it is no more so than a command that restaurants or hotels are obliged to serve all customers regardless of race, that gravely ill individuals cannot use a substance their doctors described as the only effective palliative for excruciating pain, or that a farmer cannot grow enough wheat to support his own family.”
The 2-1 majority opinion was drafted by Judge Silberman, a Regan nominee, and joined by Judge Edwards, a Carter nominee. The dissent, which found that courts do not have jurisdiction to hear the case, was drafted by Judge Kavanaugh, a George W. Bush nominee.
The D.C. Circuit is the fourth U.S. Court of Appeals to hear challenges to the ACA. Previously, the Fourth Circuit dismissed challenges against the ACA, the Eleventh Circuit held the individual mandate was unconstitutional, and the Sixth Circuit upheld the constitutionality of the individual mandate.
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