Health Affairs

Despite Paul Clement’s brilliant representation of his clients throughout the oral arguments, the coercion doctrine itself that remains murky. Furthermore, whatever the doctrine might mean, its application to the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion appears to have raised grave doubts in the minds of many of the Justices.

In Rashomon, the classic film exploration of truth, director Akira Kurosawa offers a meditation on the degree to which point of view colors reality.  A Rashomon of sorts played out during the second day of Supreme Court oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act.  For reasons that are not entirely clear other than pure sensationalism,... Read the rest of this entry »

As has been widely reported, a sea of skepticism from all points on the Supreme Court’s ideological spectrum greeted arguments by Robert Long, who had been designated as the Court-appointed defender of the position that the Anti-Injunction Act (AIA), 26 U.S.C. § 7421(a), bars a pre-penalty challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s minimum essential coverage... Read the rest of this entry »

On January 10th, the states filed their latest arguments in their bid to have the ACA’s Medicaid expansion declared an unconstitutional coercion.  Following an effort to piece together a coercion doctrine from dicta found in a handful of Supreme Court cases, the states assert that the “[t]he ACA is Premised on the Understanding that It... Read the rest of this entry »

Among the issues on which the United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral arguments in the Affordable Care Act cases is the question of whether its minimum Medicaid coverage requirements are constitutional. The states have based their appeal on a legal theory known as the “coercion doctrine.”  Citing a long history of precedents,... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: Can Medicaid enrollees and providers sue a state in federal court for failing to pay provider reimbursement rates allegedly required by federal law? In very brief summary, this is the question before the Supreme Court in Douglas v Independent Living Center of Southern California. Below, Sara Rosenbaum offers her analysis and viewpoint regarding... Read the rest of this entry »

One of the great advances for people with disabilities under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is its coverage standards for the individual and small group markets.  To be sure, the Act’s best known provisions where disability is concerned are those that bar insurers from totally denying access for people with higher health care... Read the rest of this entry »

Section 1001 of the Affordable Care Act establishes women’s preventive health benefits as a new mandatory coverage class for all insurance products sold in the individual and group markets, self insured employer-sponsored health plans, and benchmark plans enrolling newly eligible Medicaid beneficiaries.  In implementing the Act in accordance with the tight deadlines established under the... Read the rest of this entry »

One of the more peculiar aspects of life in Washington D.C. is the politicization of policy problems, to the point that the political framing effort hopelessly distorts the matter at hand. The 2007 debate over the reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program is turning out to be a classic example of this phenomenon.... Read the rest of this entry »