States say Supreme Court must strike healthcare mandate

The opponents of President Obama’s healthcare law told the Supreme Court on Monday that upholding the law’s individual mandate would mark a “revolution” in government power.

Twenty-six state attorneys general and the National Federation of Independent Business filed briefs with the high court Monday on the central question of whether the mandate is constitutional. The Obama administration filed its merits brief on the mandate last month.

The states argued that Congress stepped far outside of its constitutional powers by requiring almost everyone in the U.S. to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty.

“If Congress really had this remarkable authority, it would not have waited 220 years to exercise it,” the states said in their brief. “If this power really existed, both our Constitution and our constitutional history would look fundamentally different … The extraordinary power that the federal government claims here is simply incompatible with our founding document.”

The court will hear oral arguments over the healthcare mandate in March, setting the stage for a decision this summer — in the heat of the 2012 elections. The justices set aside three days for oral arguments, more than any other case in recent history.

Congress has the power to regulate economic activity, but the states say the mandate goes a step further and requires people to participate in commerce. Their brief dismisses the Justice Department’s argument that everyone is in the market for healthcare services, and the mandate simply regulates how those services are paid for.

“Every decision not to purchase a good or service has a substantial effect on the interstate market for that good or service once aggregated with the similar decisions of other individuals,” the states’ brief says. “A power to control every class of decisions that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce would be nothing less than a power to control nearly every decision that an individual makes.”