They're baaack.
You probably thought that once the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act last June, the Act's constitutionality would be settled.
Not a chance.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative public-interest law firm, has opened up a new front in conservatives' never-ending struggle to wipe Obamacare off the books. Their secret weapon? The Origination Clause of Article I, section 7, which states that "All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills." The key idea is that the Supreme Court recently upheld the individual mandate as a tax. But if the mandate is a tax, the PLF argues, then it is a bill for raising revenue. That means that the Affordable Care Act must have begun in the House of Representatives. And it did not.
The House passed a version of health care reform on November 7, 2009, and sent it to the Senate. Senators wanted to produce their own bill. The Origination Clause, however, requires that all bills for raising revenue must begin in the House, and health care reform included many new taxes, including the individual mandate. So the Senate amended another tax bill that the House had recently passed: H.R. 3590, which changed the taxation rules for servicemen and women buying new homes. It struck out the text of the existing bill, and inserted its new proposal as an amendment. This procedural maneuver is called using a "shell bill." This version of health care reform passed the Senate 60-39 on December 24, 2009.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
