On Coercion, the Healthcare Law, and Race to the Top
Listening to the third day of oral arguments before the Supreme Court over the Obama healthcare law today, I was struck by the discussion around whether the law constituted coercion.
The law suggests the federal government would be within its right to deny medicaid funds long received to states who refuse to accept new funds to cover more of their citizens. The argument on the side of the twenty-six states resisting the law is that this is coercive (and therefore unconstitutional) because it does not allow them to realistically opt out of participation. States have become so dependent on this federal money that not receiving it would be tantamount to being fiscally incapacitated.
Interesting, I thought.
In discussion with Solicitor General Verrilli, Justice Alito (who certainly sees the law as unconstitutional) brought
