US appeals court rules Obamacare individual mandate unconstitutional

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Wednesday ruled 2-1 that the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual mandate is unconstitutional because “it can no longer be read as a tax, and there is no other constitutional provision that justifies this exercise of congressional power.”

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Circuit Judge Jennifer W. Elrod began by separating issues of policy from issues of law.

“Some say that the Act is a much-needed solution to the problem of increasing healthcare costs and lack of healthcare availability. Many of the amici in this case, for example, argue that the law has extensively benefitted everyone from children to senior citizens to local governments to small businesses,” Elrod wrote. “Others say that the Act is a costly exercise in burdensome governmental regulation that deprives people of economic liberty. Amici of this perspective argue, for example, that the Act ‘has deprived patients nationwide of a competitive market for affordable high-deductible health insurance,” leaving “patients with no alternative to . . . skyrocketing premiums.’”

Elrod said that these weren’t the issues before the court, “And for good reason,” because the courts “are not institutionally equipped to address them.” She said that these issues are better left to the Executive and Legislative branches. The judge then asked the “narrower” questions of law and answered them [emphases ours]: