Individual Mandate

BOSTON—One of the most interesting stories about health care reform in Massachusetts, where I’m on a learning tour this week, is a story that neve...

The worst-case scenario for insurers is if the high court strikes down the provision of the law requiring us to buy coverage (the so-called individual mandate), but allows the law's important consumer protections to go forward.

WASHINGTON — Cancer patient Kathy Watson voted Republican in 2008 and believes the government has no right telling Americans to get health insur...

The briefs and oral arguments before the Supreme Court regarding the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act would have benefited from close attention to two opinions by Chief Justice John Marshall, which are referred to only in snippets.

WASHINGTON -– One of the first clues that President Barack Obama intended to paint Mitt Romney as a right wing extremist came during his remarks at ...

If the Supreme Court holds that the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, which requires every American adult to purchase health insurance or pay a fine, is unconstitutional, why could not Social Security be next?

It was Justice Scalia's argument that if the government could force an individual to purchase health insurance, it could presumably force an individual to buy broccoli, that convinced me the Supreme Court should uphold the individual mandate.

Most Americans favor many of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. But the overall plan rests on forcing you and me to buy insurance from the same companies that have been driving up the costs of health care all along.

Healthcare is too important an issue to be discussed in clichés and sound-bites. In truth, it's actually too important an issue to be resolved by nine unelected judges attempting to divine how long-dead eighteen century men would respond to twenty-first century problems.

With this system, healthcare remains in private hands, people would retain some choice in their coverage whether it is potato chips or broccoli. Everybody eats and the check is split much more fairly.

Anti-government forces realize that once Americans begin to receive the benefits of universal health care -- no denials for pre-existing conditions, no medical underwriting, no caps on benefits -- they won't want to give them up.

WASHINGTON -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday that President Barack Obama "crossed a dangerous line" this week with his S...

Shortly after the constitutional challenges to the individual mandate were filed, the DoJ filed oppositions claiming that a law prevented the suits from going forward until 2015. That defense was rejected and the decision might have fatal consequences for the defense of the mandate. Here's why.

A Court decision to overturn the individual mandate would be inconsistent with precedent dating all the way back to 1824, and would represent an effort by the Justices to inject themselves into the political and policy debates surrounding our health care problems.

It is always refreshing when folks who are charged with dealing with really serious subject matter bring a note of levity into the proceedings so people don't get too depressed.

WASHINGTON -- White House Press Secretary Jay Carney spent Wednesday parsing words in defense of President Barack Obama's claim that it would be "unpr...

Losing Health and Human Services v. Florida would be a defeat for the Obama administration, but it does not have to be a devastating one.

From the standpoint of constitutional law, overturning the Affordable Care Act could put dangerous constitutional restraints on Congress's ability to forge national solutions to national economic problems. That's a dangerous precedent that goes far beyond health care policy.

Libertarians are fond of saying, "Your right to swing your fist ends where my chin begins." The idea is that the only legitimate limits on freedom of ...

Is an individual mandate in the name of guaranteeing universal coverage, an example of socialism? Look in a mirror, Mitt, Newt and Rick. If it's socialism when Obama does it, what does that make you?

Partisan polarization creates gridlock. And gridlock has become the new norm in American politics. The only way out, given the separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution, is for one party to win control of everything.

WASHINGTON — The individual insurance requirement that the Supreme Court is reviewing isn't the first federal mandate involving health care. Th...

Ever wonder why President Obama hasn't been standing strong and steady on the frontlines defending his controversial health care reform law?