The Real Revo – by R.D. Walker
When it is the Individual Mandate fine tax.
A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled against a challenge to Obamacare’s individual mandate based on the origination clause of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court held in NFIB v. Sebelius (2012) that Obamacare’s individual mandate was constitutional because it was a tax. The Constitution also says tax legislation must originate in the House.
But the Obamacare individual mandate tax did not originate in the House. Senate Democrats took a House bill that provided tax credits to veterans purchasing new homes, gutted its language and “amended” it with the language that would become Obamacare.
Todd Gaziano, one of the lawyers for Matt Sissel, likened this amendment to “the complete destruction of a house and the erection of a massive skyscraper on the same street address.”
In a unanimous ruling in Tuesday’s case, Sissel v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the D.C. Circuit panel held that since the individual mandate’s purpose was to require people to buy health insurance, not to raise revenue, the law did not need to comply with the origination clause.
So let’s review…
SCOTUS says the Individual Mandate is a tax because, if it were a fine, it would be illegal under the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution.
But…
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals says the Individual Mandate is not a tax because, since it didn’t rise from the House of Representatives from whence all tax laws must originate, it would be illegal under the Origination Clause of Article One of the Constitution.
See? It can be thought of simultaneously as a tax and a fine or neither. The Individual Mandate is the Schrödinger’s cat of legislation.