The Republicans in congress have some plans for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and the Supreme Court will be considering the possibility that that language in the bill itself might, if followed literally, doom the program.
But it is not as though the law has ever been “settled” or “established.” It changes, or has been changed, many times since passage. It changes, it sometimes seems, to fit the occasion. What is a mandate when the law is being written, becomes a tax when its constitutionality is being debated by the Court. As Tyler Hartsfield and Grace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute write:
Nancy Pelosi once said that it would be necessary to pass the ACA in order to find out what was in it.
Turns out that passage was necessary but insufficient. Just when you think you understand the thing, it changes.
It is the soup sandwich of big government programs.
