See:
- Obamacare dodges another bullet at the Supreme Court.
- Appeals court rejects new test of health care mandate.
Article One, Section Seven of the U.S. Constitution states that:
All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.
The Affordable Care Act was judged by the Supreme Court - when it found the law to be constitutional - to be a tax. An individual who did not want to have to buy insurance sued saying the law was invalid because it did not follow the proper procedure. Tax bills have to originate in the House, the ACA did not. Lower courts did not buy this argument arguing that the revenue collected is not a tax to be collected for the treasury, but to lay for the programs created by the law. Social Security and Medicare are funded in similar ways.
- Click here for the ruling from the DC Circuit court of appeals.
By not accepting the appeal, the Supreme Court in essence chose to implicitly accept the reasoning of the lower court. There's more to the story - click on the links above to dig into it.
For more on the origination clause, click on these:
- Heritage Foundation.
- Legal Information Institute.
- THE FOUNDERS’ ORIGINATION CLAUSE ANDIMPLICATIONS FOR THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT.
