«I cannot comprehend the cruelty …»
If a tax falls in a legislative forest and collects no money, does it still make a federal mandate to purchase health insurance constitutional? The Trump administration weighed in with a resounding no overnight in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court just before the deadline for submissions. The brief’s appearance in a federal challenge by eighteen states to the Affordable Care Act will add yet another flashpoint on healthcare to the 2020 election, the New York Times points out:
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court late Thursday to overturn the Affordable Care Act — a move that, if successful, would bring a permanent end to the health insurance program popularly known as Obamacare and wipe out coverage for as many as 23 million Americans.
In an 82-page brief submitted an hour before a midnight deadline, the administration joined Republican officials in Texas and 17 other states in arguing that in 2017, Congress, then controlled by Republicans, had rendered the law unconstitutional when it zeroed out the tax penalty for not buying insurance — the so-called individual mandate.
The administration’s argument, coming in the thick of an election season — as well as a pandemic that has devastated the economy and left millions of unemployed Americans without health coverage — is sure to reignite Washington’s bitter political debate over health care.
