Source: https://www.factcheck.org/2018/09/kavanaugh-files-the-affordable-care-act/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 00:49:25+00:00

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The criticisms have focused on two dissents Kavanaugh wrote in cases challenging the constitutionality of the individual mandate, and a third dissent in a case challenging the ACA’s contraception coverage accommodations for certain religious organizations. Also, Democrats have repeatedly stressed that a case in District Court in Texas could reach the Supreme Court and affect preexisting condition protections in the health care law. We’ll look at the facts.
“Judge Kavanaugh, you wrote, for example, in Seven-Sky v. Holder that a president can disregard a law passed by Congress if he deems it to be unconstitutional, even if a court has upheld it,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar said in the Sept. 4 hearing.
Seven-Sky v. Holder, 2011. The appeals court rejected this challenge to the ACA’s individual mandate. Kavanaugh dissented, but his objection concerned the jurisdiction of the court, not the constitutionality of the health care law.
Kavanaugh dissent, Seven-Sky v. Holder, 2011: Between now and 2015, Congress might keep the mandate as is and the President may enforce it as is. If that happens, the federal courts would resolve the resulting constitutional case by our best lights and would not shy away from a necessary constitutional decision. But history tells us to cross that bridge only if and when we need to. Unlike the majority opinion, I would adhere to the text of the Anti-Injunction Act and leave these momentous constitutional issues for another day – a day that may never come.
There are differing views on what Kavanaugh’s lengthy dissent may say about his stance on the ACA.
The Federalist, a conservative online publication, published opposing takes in early July.
One commentator called it a “roadmap to save Obamacare,” noting that Kavanaugh wrote that “this case could disappear by 2015 because, by then, Congress may fix the alleged constitutional shortcoming and ensure that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate provision fits comfortably within Congress’ Taxing Clause power.” In fact, the Supreme Court in 2012 in NFIB v. Sebelius upheld the constitutionality of the individual mandate under the taxing clause.
But on July 3, The Federalist published a second analysis that said the “roadmap” claim was “nonsense.” Justin Walker, a former law clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy and Kavanaugh, and an assistant professor at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, wrote in that piece that Kavanaugh’s dissent was actually a “roadmap” for the Supreme Court dissenters in the NFIB v. Sebelius case.
But Timothy S. Jost, an emeritus professor at the Washington and Lee University School of Law and an expert on health care, wrote in a July 16 analysis of Kavanaugh’s record for the Commonwealth Fund that the Supreme Court nominee didn’t show “strong opposition” to the health care law in this case, or the one we’ll examine next.
Klobuchar framed this as an executive power issue, not explicitly a health care issue.
Jost told us in a phone interview that it’s “not unprecedented” for a president to take the position that a law is unconstitutional, but it is “very controversial” to hold that a president can refuse to enforce a statute after a court has upheld its constitutionality.
In Sissel v. HHS, an Iowa artist named Matt Sissel argued that the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional because it violated the origination clause of Article 1, which says that legislation that raises revenue must originate in the House of Representatives. The three-judge panel for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against Sissel, and he requested the court reconsider the case en banc, meaning the full court would hear the case.
Kavanaugh dissented, joined by three other judges. He said the ACA was indeed “a revenue-raising bill subject to the Origination Clause.” But, he said, the ACA complied with the clause. “Although the original House bill was amended and its language replaced in the Senate, such Senate amendments are permissible under the Clause’s text and precedent,” Kavanaugh wrote.
The court’s opinion also did say that Kavanaugh’s reading of Supreme Court precedent was “flawed” — but Kavanaugh, along with his fellow dissenters, described the panel opinion as “flawed” as well. The disagreement was over whether the origination clause applied in the case, not whether the ACA was constitutional.
Kavanaugh argued that not ruling on the case would raise constitutional questions about the origination clause and the balance of power between the House and the Senate.
The Texas case and preexisting conditions. As we wrote this summer, in their opposition to Kavanaugh’s nomination, Democrats have highlighted a case filed in District Court in Texas, and the Trump administration’s decision to not defend the federal government in that case.
The Department of Justice has sided with the plaintiffs, but disagrees that the entire health care law must be eliminated. Instead, the DOJ said a finding that the mandate were unconstitutional would mean ACA preexisting condition provisions — provisions guaranteeing that those with medical conditions won’t be denied coverage or charged more based on health status — would have to be eliminated as well.
The case has a long way to go before the Supreme Court would have any potential impact. It would need to make its way through the District Court in Texas, which began hearing oral arguments on Sept. 5, then through an appeals court and then to the Supreme Court.
What Democrats are saying: “And he would not uphold the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate,” Sen. Bernie Sanders claimed this summer.
What Kavanaugh’s record shows: Kavanaugh sided with religious organizations in a case challenging the ACA’s requirement that insurance policies include coverage of birth control. There’s some nuance, though, to this dissent as well.
Priests for Life v. HHS, 2015. The plaintiff — a Catholic anti-abortion rights group — challenged the Obama administration’s accommodation to the ACA’s contraception mandate for religious employers. That accommodation, which pertained to nonprofits with religious affiliations and closely-held for-profit companies, said that women working for those groups could get contraception coverage paid for by the insurers, instead of their employers, if the employers notified the insurance companies or the Department of Health and Human Services of their religious objections.

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