Another Obamacare suit wends its way to Supreme Court

A conservative group asked the Supreme Court on Monday to rule that Obamacare is unconstitutional because the legislation it sprung from was chiefly a product of the Senate, which the opponents argue breaks the Constitution’s rule that tax-and-spending bills start in the House.

The appeal from the Pacific Legal Foundation says the Affordable Care Act of 2010 raises hundreds of billions in taxes, making it a revenue bill subject to the Founding Fathers’ vision for which chamber should act first.

“Beyond its assault on health care freedom, Obamacare represents an attack on some core constitutional principles and protections for taxpayers,” foundation lawyer Timothy Sandefur said.

If the justices agree to hear the case, it would be the third time they’ve mulled a major threat to President Obama’s signature law.

The origination question has been in doubt since Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s surprise decision three years ago saying that while Obamacare’s individual mandate wasn’t allowed under Congress’ powers to control interstate commerce, it was valid as an exercise of its taxing power.

Since the key language of Obamacare came from the Senate, opponents then said it violated another part of the Constitution that requires money bills to begin in the House.

The Pacific Legal Foundation said their plaintiff, Matt Sissel, doesn’t want health insurance but is being forced to get it under the mandate, which imposes an increasingly painful tax penalty on those who shirk coverage.

Mr. Sissel is an Iraq War veteran and small business owner who pays his own medical bills and “objects on financial, philosophical, and constitutional grounds to being ordered to purchase a health plan he does not need or want,” the foundation said.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected his suit in August, saying the primary purpose of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 wasn’t to raise money.

Other judges on the panel said Obamacare should be labeled a revenue bill, but that Congress didn’t violate the origination clause because the Senate inserted text into a legislative shell from the House.

Mr. Sandefur says the circuit judges subjectively exempted Obamacare from the Constitution and that the justices should strike down the entire law.

Yet so far the overhaul’s opponents haven’t had much luck before the high court.

Chief Justice Roberts’ reasoning saved the law and its crucial mandate in 2012, and he enraged conservatives once more by teaming with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and the court’s liberal wing to uphold the law’s subsidies in a 6-3 decision.

Plaintiffs in that case, King v. Burwell, said the law’s text limited the subsidies to the handful of states that set up their own exchanges.

Chief Justice Roberts reasoned the law, when read in its entirety, allowed qualified Americans to qualify for the tax credits no matter where they live.

Also, the justices in 2014 said closely held corporations did not have to comply with an Obamacare-derived rule requiring employers to provide free birth control as part of their health plans. Though never a threat to the law itself, conservatives and religious liberties groups cherished the win and hope to replicate it when religious nonprofits plead their case to the justices.

The nonprofits sued over an opt-out form the administration devised to carve religious employers out of the mandate while allowing a third party to cover their employees. Religious groups say the form still makes them complicit in sinful activity.