Legal Professor Randy Barnett: The constitutional challenges to the healthcare reform law
Update: June 28, 2012 by Steven Greer
The biggest winner from the Supreme Court ruling today that said the PPACA “ObamaCare” law was unconstitutional for using the “commerce clause” to justify the mandate to buy insurance was Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett. It was his previous loss in the Supreme Court challenging the commerce clause in a different case that guided the opponents of the PPACA in this case.
The Supreme Court agreed that the commerce clause was being wrongly used to justify the individual mandate to buy health insurance or else be fined by the IRS. Professor has gone from being a possible double-loser in the highest court in the land, to being a vindicated legal scholar.
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Georgetown Law Center Legal Theory Professor Randy Barnett discusses the core arguments being made by numerous State Attorneys Generals that the newly passed healthcare reform law is unconstitutional. In Part 1, the “commerce clause”, whether that empowers the federal government to mandate health insurance, and the tax penalty for those not purchasing insurance, are evaluated on the merits.
In Part 2, Professor Barnett discusses whether the new law infringes on the sovereignty of the states, and privacy rights of individuals. He then estimates the chances of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Attorney General’s lawsuits.
Georgetown Med Ctr, Policy | apples49 | 
July 15, 2012 7:36 am
