Mass. AG Coakley Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Back Insurance Mandate

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting a key provision in the federal health care law.

The high court is expected to hear arguments this year on the constitutionality of a requirement in the 2010 law that individuals must buy health insurance if they can afford to or pay a penalty.

Coakley argues in the brief filed last Friday that a similar provision in Massachusetts’ first-in-the-nation health care law has been highly successful. She says 98 percent of state residents now have health coverage, the highest percentage in the country, and the cost of providing free care to the uninsured has dropped by $235 million per year.

The attorney general says the 2006 Massachusetts law served as a “blueprint” for the federal law.

Latest Comments

• January 17, 2012 at 3:23 pm

  The Other Point of View says:

  The Federal government has quite a bit of authority about what you can't buy. Cocaine and hand-grenades are a couple of obvious examples. The question is whether the governm... read more
• January 17, 2012 at 3:06 pm

  Wayne says:

  I think the biggest flaw in the federal law is the failure to address the penalty. I doubt that the tax code can be used to levy a fine since to do so skirts the due process r... read more
• January 17, 2012 at 3:04 pm

  New Point of View says:

  I agree with the Other Point of View, the results aren't a constitutional argument. I really wish people who were elected would educate themselves about constitutionality vs ... read more