National Federation of Independent Business v. Kathleen Sebelius

Notable Items:

Issue(s) Before the Court:

Petitioner's Claim(s):

Respondent's Claim(s):

Holding(s) and Disposition:

Material Facts:

• A full recounting of the facts is available below

Procedural History:

Rationale

Roberts Majority Opinion

• A full description of the rationale is available below

Ginsberg concur in part, dissent in part (??)

Thomas Dissent (??)

Full Recounting of Facts

• A list of the material facts is available above

Majority Full Argument

• [Part III A 1: Commerce Clause, Universality of Health Care]
• failure to purchase insurance "has a substantial and deleterious effect on interstate commercce" by creating a cost-shifting problem...
• We have recognized that "the power of Congress over interstate commerce" extends to activities that "have a substantial effect on interstate commerce."
• But Congress has never attempted t rely on that power to compel individuals to purchase an unwanted product....
• The power to regulate commerce presupposes the existence of commercial activity to be regulated.
• If the power to "regulate" something included the power to create it, many of the provisions in the Constitution would be superfluous. (to coin money and regulate the Value thereof)
• The individual mandate, however, does not regulate existing commercial activity.
• It compels individuals to become active in commerce by purchasing a product....
• [gov't] argues that because sickness and injury are unpredictable but unavoidable, "the uninsured as a class are active in the market for health care, which they regularly seek and obtain."
• The individual mandate "merely regulates how individuals finance and pay for that active participation--requiring them to do so through insurance, rather than through attempted self-insurance, with the back-stop of shifting costs to others...."
• most of those regulated by the individual mandate are not currently engaged in any commercial activity involving health care, ...." [no purchases of pharamceuticals, bandages, etc.?]
• Our precedents recognize Congress's power to regulate "class[es] of activities," ... not classes of individuals, apart from any activity in which they are engaged....
• [Part III A 2: Necessary and Proper Clause]
• the individual mandate ... is an "integral part of a comprehesive scheme of economic regulation"
• The individual mandate, ..., vests Congress with the extraordinary ability to create the necessary predicate to the exercise of the enumerated power
• The commerce power thus does not authorize the mandate.
• The core of the rationale is available above