SCOTUSblog live blog of opinions June 28, 2012

10:21

Amy Howe:  On the Medicaid issue, a majority of the Court holds that the Medicaid expansion is constitutional but that it w/b unconstitutional for the federal government to withhold Medicaid funds for non-compliance with the expansion provisions.

10:22

Lyle:  The key comment on salvaging the Medicaid expansion is this (from Roberts): "Nothing in our opinion precludes Congress from offering funds under the ACA to expand the availability of health care, and requiring that states accepting such funds comply with the conditions on their use. What Congress is not free to do is to penalize States that choose not to participate in that new program by taking away their existing Medicaid funding." (p. 55)

10:22

Amy Howe:  To be clear, what we are typing here are excerpts from the opinion or paraphrasing thereof. Not predictions anymore.

10:22

Tom:  866,000 liveblog readers.

10:23

Amy Howe:  The critical detail is that you cannot take away the existing Medicaid funds.

10:23

Amy Howe:  The Court does not reach severability issues, having upheld the mandate 5-4.

10:24

Lyle:  To readers of the Roberts opinion, a caution: It is the opinion of the Court through the top of p. 44; the balance is labeled as, and is, Roberts speaking for himself.

10:24

Amy Howe:  Another way to think about Medicaid: the Constitution requires that states have a choice about whether to participate in the expansion of eligibility; if they decide not to, they can continue to receive funds for the rest of the program.

10:24

Tom:  Apologies - you can't refuse to pay the tax; typo. The only effect of not complying with the mandate is that you pay the tax.

10:25

Amy Howe:  The Court holds that the mandate violates the Commerce Clause, but that doesn't matter b/c there are five votes for the mandate to be constitutional under the taxing power.

10:26

Amy Howe:  The Court holds that the Anti-Injunction Act doesn't apply because the label "tax" is not controlling.

10:26

Lyle:  Justice Ginsburg makes clear that the vote is 5-4 on sustaining the mandate as a form of tax. Her opinion, for herself and Sotomayor, Breyer and Kagan, joins the key section of Roberts opinion on that point. She would go further and uphold the mandate under the Commerce Clause, which Roberts wouldn't. Her opinion on Commerce does not control.

10:27

Lyle:  Kennedy is reading from the dissent.

10:28

Lyle:  Justice Ginsburg would uphold Medicaid just as Congress wrote it. That, too, is not controlling.

10:28

Lyle:  In opening his statement in dissent, Kennedy says: "In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety."

10:31

Tom:  We're still here. Getting deeper into the weeds. Plain English coming momentarily.

10:32

Tom:  The opinion is still not available electronically.

10:32

Amy Howe: 

In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn't comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding. 

10:33

Tom: 

We're checking on whether the Court is still reading.