Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Constitutionality of Individual Mandate

On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court presided over two hours of oral argument on the most publicized aspect of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) under review: whether the individual mandate is constitutional. The minimum coverage provision of the Affordable Care Act provides that, beginning in 2014, non-exempted federal income taxpayers who fail to maintain a minimum level of health insurance for themselves or their dependents will owe a penalty. The key question debated on Tuesday in U.S. Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida was whether this individual mandate provision is a valid exercise of Congress’s power to regulate commerce, or whether – as some justices seemed to suggest – it amounts to an unconstitutional legislative overreach. Continue reading this entry at Littler's Washington DC Employment Law Update.

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