Question

Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as Obama Care) in order to increase the number of Americans covered by health insurance and decrease the cost of health care. One key provision in the law is the individual mandate, which requires most Americans to maintain “minimum essential” health insurance coverage. Attorneys general and businesses from several states challenged this
requirement (and other provisions of the law) as being unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause. From a series of federal decisions from the courts below, some finding the law constitutional and others not, the affected parties appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. What does the Commerce Clause have to do with this law? Is the law constitutional?

Answer 1

The law’s most controversial component, known as the “individual mandate,” requires all Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a “shared responsibility payment” to the government.This violates the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, which gives the federal government the power to regulate commerce between the states.

This individual mandate is not a “penalty,” as the health-care law identified it, but a tax, and therefore a constitutional application of Congress’s taxation power.

This law is constitutional as it became effective from March,2010.The Supreme Court of the United States decided that the government has a right to give this tax under the United States Constitution.

Individual mandate is tax and it will be repealed by starting 2019.