{"id":16259,"date":"2018-06-16T17:16:20","date_gmt":"2018-06-16T22:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=16259"},"modified":"2018-06-16T17:16:20","modified_gmt":"2018-06-16T22:16:20","slug":"but-its-not-a-scotus-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2018\/06\/16\/but-its-not-a-scotus-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"But It&#8217;s Not A SCOTUS Decision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;ve been following the news about the recent suit filed in Texas claiming the <em><strong>ACA<\/strong><\/em> is unconstitutional, Nicholas Bagley at <em><strong>The Incidental Economist<\/strong><\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/theincidentaleconomist.com\/wordpress\/the-case-that-could-end-the-texas-lawsuit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">thinks<\/a> an amicus brief filed by the American Medical Association is an effective rebuttal:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Today, I wanted to highlight one of those briefs: this one\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theincidentaleconomist.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AMA-Brief.pdf\">by the American Medical Association<\/a>and other medical societies. It\u2019s the brief that the United States would have filed if it hadn\u2019t abandoned its duty to defend the statute.<\/p>\n<p>The brief is excellent throughout, especially in arguing that the plaintiffs don\u2019t have standing to bring the suit (an issue\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theincidentaleconomist.com\/wordpress\/a-puzzle-about-standing-and-the-affordable-care-act\/\">I flagged last week<\/a>). But its most important contribution is identifying a Fifth Circuit case\u2014one that binds the district court that\u2019s hearing the lawsuit\u2014that seems to dispose of the argument that a penalty-free mandate is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In\u00a0<em>United States v. Ardoin<\/em>, 19 F.3d 177 (5th Cir. 1994), the Fifth Circuit held that Congress may constitutionally exercise its taxing power\u00a0<em>without\u00a0<\/em>actually raising \u201csome revenue\u201d for the government.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Unfortunately, that&#8217;s not a <em><strong>SCOTUS<\/strong><\/em> decision, but the Fifth Circuit decision, so it&#8217;s always possible <em><strong>SCOTUS<\/strong><\/em> would ignore it if it ended up in the <em><strong>SCOTUS<\/strong><\/em> docket. But it might make for an early victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;ve been following the news about the recent suit filed in Texas claiming the ACA is unconstitutional, Nicholas Bagley at The Incidental Economist thinks an amicus brief filed by the American Medical Association is an effective rebuttal: Today, I wanted to highlight one of those briefs: this one\u00a0by the \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2018\/06\/16\/but-its-not-a-scotus-decision\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16260,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16259\/revisions\/16260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}