Understanding the Failure of Health-Care Exceptionalism in the Supreme Court's Obamacare Decision

8 Pages Posted: 17 Jul 2012 Last revised: 29 Jul 2012

See all articles by Abigail R. Moncrieff

Abigail R. Moncrieff

University of Texas at Austin School of Law

Date Written: July 16, 2012

Abstract

On June 28, 2012, a mere century after the first presidential proposal for national health insurance, the Supreme Court issued a resounding victory for President Obama and for health-care reform generally, upholding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act against a serious constitutional challenge. Nevertheless, the Court also struck a potential blow to future health-care reform efforts. A majority of the Court refused to accept the Solicitor General’s argument that health care is a unique market with unique regulatory needs that justify special constitutional treatment. The failure of health-care exceptionalism in the Court’s opinion might render future reform efforts more difficult than they would have been if the Solicitor General’s argument had carried the day. This Commentary seeks to shed light on the Court’s hesitation to recognize the uniqueness of health insurance and health care, noting that market-based exceptionalism in constitutional law has a long, dark history that the Court was understandably loath to repeat. Although the result of the majority's one-size-fits-all approach to constitutional analysis in this case is an odd holding that elides some genuine uniqueness of American health care, the alternative of health-care exceptionalism might have been much worse for our overall constitutional system.

Keywords: health-care reform, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), Insurance Exceptionalism, Taxing Power, Market Exceptionalism

JEL Classification: K23, K32, K34, K49

Suggested Citation

Moncrieff, Abigail R., Understanding the Failure of Health-Care Exceptionalism in the Supreme Court's Obamacare Decision (July 16, 2012). CHEST, 2012, Forthcoming, Boston Univ. School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 12-37, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2109396

Abigail R. Moncrieff (Contact Author)

University of Texas at Austin School of Law ( email )

727 East Dean Keeton Street
Austin, TX 78705
United States

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