California v. Texas

141 S.Ct. 2104 (2021)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act required most Americans to obtain minimum essential health insurance coverage. (In reality, the Act was not good at patient protection nor was it by any stretch of the imagination “affordable.” It was simply government welfare for insurance companies.) The Act imposed a monetary penalty, scaled according to income, upon individuals who failed to do so. In 2017, Congress effectively nullified the penalty by setting its amount at $0. Texas and 17 other States Ps brought this lawsuit against Ds, the United States, and federal officials. Ps claim that without the penalty the Act’s minimum essential coverage requirement is unconstitutional. Ps claim that neither the Commerce Clause nor the Tax Clause (nor any other enumerated power) grants Congress the power to enact it. The United States sided with Ps and California along with 15 other States and the District of Columbia (state intervenors), intervened in order to defend the Act’s constitutionality. The District Court found that the individual plaintiffs had standing to challenge the constitutionality of the minimum essential coverage provision, §5000A(a). The court held that the minimum essential coverage provision is unconstitutional and not severable from the rest of the Act. It granted relief in the form of a declaration stating just that. The appeals court agreed with the District Court that Ps had standing and that the minimum essential coverage provision was unconstitutional. It found that the District Court’s severability analysis was “incomplete.” It remanded the case for further proceedings. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.