Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Litigation Update

Elected officials from over 20 states and a number of private individuals and groups have filed legal challenges in an attempt to slow or stop implementation of the Affordable Car Act. These challenges, the first of which was filed only minutes after the Act was signed into law, raise a number of claims, the most prominent of which is that the Act oversteps Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce.

These claims have met with a mixed response so far in the courts, with judges at the district court level unable to reach a consensus on the Act's constitutionality. It is likely that the federal appellate courts will come down on both sides as well. Regardless of how the various cases are decided in the lower federal courts, it is almost certain that the constitutionality of ACA will be decided by the Supreme Court before its main provisions go into effect in 2014.

This presentation will provide an overview of the claims raised both by those challenging and those defending the Act. It will then describe the current state of litigation and present a roadmap of expected future legal action. Finally, it will briefly discuss the ramifications of anti-ACA litigation to public health practitioners, administrators and policy makers.