Legal Limits and the Implementation of the Affordable Care Act

Abstract

Accusations of illegality have dogged the Obama administration’s efforts to implement the Affordable Care Act, the most ambitious piece of social legislation since the advent of Medicare and Medicaid. This essay takes a close look at the most hotly debated legal questions surrounding the ACA’s rollout. My hope is that a holistic and even-handed examination of the administration’s purported legal excesses will provide a useful focal point for understanding how law restrains executive discretion in a time of polarized politics. The essay closes with some thoughts about the status of executive lawbreaking in American constitutional culture and how to discipline such lawbreaking when it occurs.

Keywords: Affordable Care Act, executive power