Supreme Court Orders Federal Appeals Court To Consider Health Care Challenge

Round 2: The Appeals Courts Split

In June 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit <a href="http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/11a0168p-06.pdf" target="_hplink">upheld, by a 2-1 vote</a>, Judge Steeh's decision in <em>Thomas More Law Center</em>. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton, a George W. Bush appointee, was the first judge chosen by a Republican president to reject the commerce clause challenge, writing that "no one must 'pile inference upon inference' to recognize that the national regulation of a $2.5 trillion industry, much of it financed through" national health insurance companies, "is economic in nature." He joined Judge Boyce Martin, a Jimmy Carter appointee, in the majority, while Judge James L. Graham, a Reagan appointee, wrote a vigorous dissent. In August, the 11th Circuit, reviewing <em>Florida v. HHS</em>, <a href="http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/courts/ca11/201111021.pdf" target="_hplink">produced a near mirror-image result</a>. Judge Frank Hull, a Clinton appointee, joined the Reagan-appointed Judge Joel Dubina to affirm District Judge Vinson's decision to strike down the individual mandate. Judge Stanley Marcus, a Clinton appointee, dissented, quoting heavily from Sutton's 6th Circuit concurring opinion. All three 11th Circuit judges found the mandate severable from the rest of the Affordable Care Act, reversing District Judge Hudson's decision to deep-six the entire law. Both appeals courts unanimously rejected the government's taxing power argument, insisting that if Congress had thought the penalty for not buying insurance was a tax, it would have explicitly called it a tax. On this issue, a third appeals court created another circuit split.