WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration defended the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) in a brief filed Friday with the Supreme Court that calls the law an appropriate response to a "crisis in the national health care market."
The government called on the court to uphold the constitutionality of the requirement that most individuals buy a minimum level of health insurance starting in 2014 or else pay a penalty.
One federal appeals court struck down the so-called individual mandate as exceeding Congress' power under the Constitution. But two other federal appeals courts upheld the law and agreed with the administration's argument that Congress was well within its power to adopt that requirement.
Florida and 25 other states, as well as the National Federation of Independent Business, Nashville, Tenn., told the court in separate briefs that if the justices strike down the individual requirement, they should invalidate the rest of the law as well. Thirty-six Republican senators echoed the states' argument in their own filing.
Some opponents have argued that, if Congress can require citizens to buy health insurance, it also can require them to buy broccoli.
The individual mandate provision was struck down by a divided panel of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The 11th Circuit court is the only court among the four appeals courts that have considered the law to find it to be unconstitutional. One appeals court held that it is too soon to rule on the law because of an act the prohibits plaintiffs from getting injunctions to block taxes before the taxes are in effect.
But the administration said the commerce clause of the Constitution applies to the individual health mandate because health care is an issue of supreme national importance that consumes nearly 18% of the U.S. economy.
