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Republicans, economists urge Supreme Court to strike entire healthcare law
More than 100 congressional Republicans signed a brief Friday urging the Supreme Court to strike down the entire healthcare reform law if it finds the law's individual mandate unconstitutional.
The lawmakers joined an amicus brief filed by the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative advocacy group. If the Supreme Court strikes down the requirement that almost all Americans purchase health insurance, the brief says, it should toss out all of the Affordable Care Act.
"Congress would not have passed the ACA absent the individual mandate," the brief sates. "Without the individual mandate, the ACA’s remaining provisions cannot function properly. Thus, the unconstitutional individual mandate is not severable from the ACA, and the entire Act must be invalidated."
More than 100 economists, including Nobel laureates, joined a separate brief Friday on the issue of severability. That brief, filed by the American Action Forum, says the cost of the healthcare law would skyrocket without the mandate, making it unlikely that Congress would have passed the law without it.
Only one lower court threw out the entire healthcare law, and that part of the decision was reversed on appeal. But the law does not include an explicit severability clause, and even the Obama administration has said some other provisions would have to fall along with the mandate. The Supreme Court had to appoint a third party to make the argument that the mandate is completely severable.
The lawsuit before the Supreme Court was filed by 26 state attorneys general and the National Federation of Independent Business. They will file their initial brief on severability today, and the Justice Department will file its first brief on the merits of whether the mandate is constitutional.
