Chief Justice John Roberts stunned the nation by upholding the Affordable Care Act--more commonly known as Obamacare. In The Tough Luck Constitution and the Assault on Health Care Reform, Andrew Koppelman explains how the Court's conservatives embraced the arguments of a fringe libertarian legal movement bent on eviscerating the modern social welfare state. They instead advocate what Koppelman calls a "tough luck" philosophy: if you fall on hard times, too bad for you. He argues that the rule they proposed--that the ...
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Chief Justice John Roberts stunned the nation by upholding the Affordable Care Act--more commonly known as Obamacare. In The Tough Luck Constitution and the Assault on Health Care Reform, Andrew Koppelman explains how the Court's conservatives embraced the arguments of a fringe libertarian legal movement bent on eviscerating the modern social welfare state. They instead advocate what Koppelman calls a "tough luck" philosophy: if you fall on hard times, too bad for you. He argues that the rule they proposed--that the government can't make citizens buy things--has nothing to do with the Constitution, and that it is in fact useless to stop real abuses of power. He goes on to dismantle the high court's construction of the commerce clause, arguing that it almost crippled America's ability to reverse rising health-care costs and shrinking access. Ranging from early constitutional history to potential consequences, this is the definitive postmortem of the landmark Obamacare case.
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