Neil Siegel (Duke University - School of Law) has posted Four Constitutional Limits that the Minimum Coverage Provision Respects on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
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Opponents of the minimum coverage provision in the Affordable Care Act charge that if Congress can require most people to obtain health insurance coverage or pay a certain amount of money, then Congress can impose whatever mandates it wishes — or, at least, whatever purchase mandates it wishes. This Essay refutes that claim by identifying four limits on Congress’s enumerated powers that the minimum coverage provision honors. Under the restrictions imposed by these limits, Congress may not use its commerce power: (1) to regulate noneconomic subject matter; (2) to impose a regulation that violates constitutional rights, including the right to bodily integrity; (3) to regulate at all, including by imposing a mandate, unless it reasonably believes that the regulation will ameliorate a significant collective action problem involving multiple states; or (4) to impose an economic mandate unless it reasonably believes that other regulatory means would be less effective or more coercive
Highly recommended.
