Court documents offer details of administration's legal defense of individual mandate

May 20 2011

The federal government offered an aggressive defense of the new health law in a reply brief filed Wednesday in the multi-state challenge to the overhaul.

Politico: Feds Amp Argument For Individual Health Insurance Mandate
The Obama administration argues that the states suing over the constitutionality of the health care reform law would risk leaving uninsured Americans "on the street after a car accident" without the law's requirement that nearly all Americans buy health insurance (Haberkorn, 5/18).

CQ HealthBeat: Costs of Uninsured Passed on to Other Americans, Justice Department Argues
Millions of Americans who opt to "self insure" and not buy health insurance pass on billions of dollars of health care costs to the taxpayers, Justice Department lawyers argued in a brief filed Wednesday in a multi-state lawsuit challenging the health care overhaul law. Such costs are a "burden on interstate commerce that plainly qualifies as substantial," the attorneys' brief says (Norman, 5/18).

The Hill: Justice Dept. Sharpens Tone In Defense Of Health Care Mandate
The federal government laid down an aggressive defense of the new health care law in court filings Wednesday, saying the law's challengers are endorsing a system that would leave people bleeding in the street after a car accident. The Justice Department filed its reply brief Wednesday in a suit brought by 26 state attorneys general and the National Federation of Independent Business (Baker, 5/18).

The Associated Press: Govt Urges Appeals Court To Uphold Health Care Law
The Obama administration said Wednesday that health care reforms should be upheld in the courts because the costs of the uninsured are a burden on interstate commerce. In arguments filed in a federal appeals court in Atlanta, the government said the new law provided a comprehensive solution to the problem by requiring most people to maintain a minimum level of insurance or pay a tax penalty (5/18).

Bloomberg: U.S. Defends Health Care Coverage Mandate
The Obama administration defended its health care legislation's minimum-coverage mandate in a court filing that sets the stage for next month's appeal hearing over a U.S. judge's decision to strike down the law. A federal appeals court in Atlanta on June 8 will hear argument from attorneys for the U.S. and for 26 states that sued successfully to void the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010 (Harris, 5/18).