6th Circuit Court of Appeals rules Affordable Care Act constitutional

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In a major legal victory for the Obama administration, the first court of appeals level decision in the country has held that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. Political Animal – 6th Circuit finds Affordable Care Act constitutional:

In another legal win for the Affordable Care Act, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. The ruling is online here (pdf).

It is the first federal appellate bench to rule on the constitutionality of the reform law.

How significant is this decision? Quite the opposite result was anticipated by many court observers. The 6th Circuit is considered one of the nation’s more conservative appellate benches. Also:

One of the judges who upheld the constitutionality of the ACA was Judge Jeffrey Sutton, a nominee of George W. Bush, and a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Indeed, Sutton, a Federalist Society veteran, has been described as “one of the nation’s leading advocates for conservative states-rights positions.”

Far-right activists hoped, and many assumed, Sutton would be a key ally in overturning the law. He was not. Indeed, he is the first federal judge to consider the legality of the ACA on the merits who “broke ranks” — that is, a conservative judge who sided with the Obama administration’s position.

From the ruling, of which Sutton was a part:

“By regulating the practice of self-insuring for the cost of health care delivery, the minimum coverage provision is facially constitutional under the Commerce Clause for two independent reasons. First, the provision regulates economic activity that Congress had a rational basis to believe has substantial effects on interstate commerce. In addition, Congress had a rational basis to believe that the provision was essential to its larger economic scheme reforming the interstate markets in health care and health insurance.”

"The lower court agreed with the Obama administration, and now the appeals court has done the same. It’s hard to see this as anything but a major victory for the law, the administration, and common sense."

It appears the Affordable Care Act will have a date with the "felonious five" of the U.S. Supreme Court in its next term.

UPDATE: More on this opinion from the Political Animal – Resolving the ACA’s ‘inactivity’ question:

[C]onservatives argue [that] those who choose not to buy coverage aren’t engaging in an activity; they’re engaging in inactivity. Therefore they fall outside the law’s reach, and the mandate is unconstitutional.

This has always been a very poor argument. When the 6th Circuit announced today that the health care is perfectly constitutional, the three-judge panel had no use for the right’s activity/inactivity argument. Adam Serwer explained:

Martin rejected the notion that going without health insurance constitutes an “inactivity” that can’t be regulated under the Commerce Clause, noting that, “The uninsured cannot avoid the need for health care, and they consume over $100 billion in health care services annually.” Martin adds that “Self-insuring for the cost of health care directly affects the interstate market for health care delivery and health insurance. These effects are not at all attenuated as were the links between the regulated activities and interstate commerce in Lopez and Morrison.”

That last point is key, because Republican appointees, conscious of the fact that Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion in Raich stands as a substantial obstacle to arguments against the idea that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, concocted the “inactivity/activity” distinction as a rhetorical loophole that would allow Scalia to avoid the implications of his argument that “where Congress has the authority to enact a regulation of interstate commerce, it possesses every power needed to make that regulation effective.” 

Keep in mind, all three judges on the 6th Circuit panel agreed on this point. Two of the three were put on the bench by Republican presidents, and one is very conservative.

In other words, this was a no-brainer.