Constitutional Law

Court Decisions Weaken Nation's Major Health Care Laws, Article Finds

For years, a growing cadre of judges, led by the U.S. Supreme Court’s most conservative justices, has issued rulings that weaken the nation’s major health care laws, maintains Simon Lazarus and Harper Jean Tobin, attorneys with the National Senior Citizens Law Center (NSCLC). In a new Issue Brief distributed by ACS, Lazarus and Tobin examine a string of judicial decisions that has undermined Medicaid and the Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by advancing a deregulatory agenda that favors health insurers over patients.

Lazarus and Tobin write:

The jurisprudence of the Rehnquist Court, largely carried forward under Chief Justice John Roberts, more often than not narrowed the scope of the nation’s health safety net laws, insulated public and private administrators from accountability, and disrupted or blocked citizens’ access to benefits to which they are entitled. More often than not, these decisions frustrated rather than furthered the broad and generous goals that drove Congress to enact these programs.

The NSCLC attorneys assert that conservative justices, such as Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, have authored opinions that limit Congress’ power to enact progressive health care legislation and Americans’ ability to enforce the federal health care rights in court. “To justify this side of their agenda, the justices have elaborated an idiosyncratic notion of ‘federalism,’ emphasizing states’ rights.”

“The Supreme Court’s Two-Front War on the Safety Net: A Cautionary Tale for Health Care Reformers,” is available here.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on January 27, 2009 (boomark / email).