Unconstitutional For So Many Reasons

Besides the fact that ObamaCare is blatantly unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment (and the various bribes targeted to various states to get it passed are blatantly unconstitutional under the 14th amendment), the Senate Bill is also miserably unconstitutional under the 5th amendment.

Here's a good piece of legal analysis explaining why (and also explaining that there already exists plenty of constitutional case law which points to the conclusion that the monstrosity will be tied up in a tsunami of litigation, and will quite probably be voided).

A taste:

The concern that I wish to address at the outset deals with the unprecedented level of systemic coercion that the Reid Bill exerts on the various firms that supply health-insurance coverage in the small-group and individual health-insurance markets. Constitutional concerns with these provisions arise even if one assumes that Congress has the power under the Commerce Clause to pass comprehensive regulation of health care in this form. Independent of any question about the scope of Congressional power, it is critical to consider that the Fifth Amendment affords regulated health-insurance companies protection against the taking of property without compensation and without due process of law.
These overlapping guarantees bind both the federal government and the state governments in all of their activities, whether undertaken jointly or independently.

These constitutional provisions have been subject to extensive interpretation in the Supreme Court in ratemaking cases, which must be taken into account in dealing with the legislation. The Supreme Court's basic constitutional requirement is that any firm in a regulated market be allowed to recover a risk-adjusted competitive rate of return on its accumulated capital investment. See Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch, 488 U.S. 299 (1988).

The Reid Bill emphatically fails this test by imposing sharp limitations on the ability of health-insurance companies to raise fees or exclude coverage. Moreover, the Reid Bill forces on these regulated firms onerous new obligations that they will not be able to fund from their various revenue sources. The squeeze between the constricted revenue sources allowable under the Reid Bill and the extensive new legal obligations it imposes is likely to result in massive cash crunch that could drive the firms that serve the individual and small-group health-insurance markets into bankruptcy.

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This detailed analysis of the Reid Bill helps to set up the appropriate constitutional analysis. The applicable standards for constitutional review have usually been developed in connection with rate-making procedures in natural monopolies. Within this context, the social objective is to limit the monopoly returns to public utilities, which do not face the risk of competition from new entrants, because they operate in a market in which the declining marginal cost of the initial entrant prevents a new entrant from gaining a toehold. In such a situation, one permissible legislative response is to impose some form of regulation that brings that established player back to a competitive rate of return. I shall pass by all the difficulties in implementing such a program. It is important to note, however, that it is never a satisfactory response for regulators to drive the rates of return down to zero, for then no one would ever be prepared to provide services.

Since it is necessary to compete for capital across the entire range of activities, the constitutional protection afforded under both the Takings and the Due Process Clauses provides that the rate of return cannot fall below that which the investors in the firm could obtain in a competitive market. That calculation has to take into account the level of risk associated with the business, which in general is low with respect to public utilities that have at least de facto protection against new entry.

The hard question, therefore, is what kinds of systems of rate regulation will pass constitutional muster.

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What is striking is how far the ratemaking system for health insurance is from all the above. There is no natural monopoly in health insurance, and there is a powerful way to open up health-insurance markets by knocking down the state barriers to entry that have been in effect since 1945 under the McCarran-Ferguson Act. Once it is clear—and it is generally clear—that the health insurance industry is competitive or could easily be made competitive, the entire rationale for government ratemaking is undermined. The point of ratemaking was to require the firm to accept competitive rates of returns in a market setting where it enjoyed monopoly power. Here, the market is either competitive already, or easily can be made so. In this environment, ratemaking no longer serves any useful function.

Contrary to the implicit assumption behind the Reid Bill, ratemaking cannot induce further efficiencies once competitive forces have driven out all elements of monopoly power. Yet all firms are trapped, for the only way in which they can escape ever more onerous requirements and restrictions is to render themselves ineligible to enroll new groups or individuals—whose health insurance, of course, their tax dollars will continue to fund. In addition, right now the Reid Bill subjects plans outside the Exchanges to certain other legal requirements, which could easily be tightened down the road. The non-Exchange health insurance issuers are, therefore, placed in an untenable position that exposes them to the multiple strategies in the Reid bill that control rates and set the terms of service and that will have three unacceptable consequences: (1) to reduce the rate of return of health insurance companies below competitive levels, (2) to pile expensive administrative mandates on them, and (3) to generate major uncertainties as to how the federal obligations on such companies will pan out.

At this point, there is a near mathematical certainty that the scheme of health-insurance market regulation contemplated by the Reid bill will reduce the risk-adjusted rate of return below the level needed to keep these firms in the individual and small-group health-insurance markets. I am not aware of a single provision in the Reid Bill that looks to ensuring a minimum rate of return. And there are countless provisions in the bill that impose new obligations to cover services while eliminating the revenue sources to deal with them. It is just this combination of regulatory programs that leads the CBO to treat private health insurance issuers as part of a federal program--as though they have been subject to de facto nationalization.

This systemic regulation of both Exchange and non-Exchange carriers shows, moreover, that those health-insurance issuers that participate in the Exchange are shorn of all constitutional rights. The requirement that the states order rebates of money spent on non-claim expenses is not constitutionally permissible unless and until the Reid Bill makes some allowance for earning a reasonable rate of return. That return, moreover, must take into account the extra riskiness that flows from the grant of broad delegated authority to the Secretary.

In addition, the decision to order rebates in good years without adjustments for the losses in bad years makes it impossible for a firm to earn a reasonable rate of return. In utility rate regulation, it is not constitutionally permissible to impose an annual rate cap just at the competitive level, while leaving the carrier obligated to eat the losses in poor years. Section 2718 of the Reid bill goes even further than such unconstitutional provisions in the utility context:[3] it imposes a hard cap, without any accurate accounting for administrative costs or any explicit recognition of the constitutional right to earn a reasonable profit.

To make matters worse, these overall caps apply on top of all the restrictions on the ability to decline coverage or vary rates that are involved in other provisions of the Reid Bill. These provisions necessarily raise the administrative costs of providing insurance. There are no upper bounds on what can be required by various federal and state officials who are charged with oversight of individual and small-group plans in many instances, and all health-care plans in others. At this point, it is only a matter of time before the cost obligations are so enormous that even complete freedom in setting prices would not allow the firm to remain in business. Nor will this problem be cured by the vast pattern of subsidies and taxes that permeate the rest of the bill. Quite to the contrary, the subsidies may put greater pressure on the capacity of health insurance companies to operate, given that these firms have no capacity to choose which plans to provide to which customers.

Given these facts, it is impossible for the rate regulation of firms in the competitive health insurance industry to recover the constitutionally permissible rate of return. So long as competitive rates of return remain the constitutional benchmark, rate regulation necessarily fails. The unregulated rates are already at the competitive level. Any system that reduces revenues, raises costs, and increases uncertainty cannot possibly meet the applicable constitutional standard.

To my mind, the only serious question about the legislation is whether a facial challenge will be allowed to the Reid Bill when it does not contain explicit price-control features. Such facial challenge are often denied in land-use cases, but in rate-regulation cases the result has usually been otherwise. To wait until the program has run its course is to consign a health-insurance company to the substantial risk of bankruptcy just for trying to stay in business. It does not have the option to hold off development until the legal uncertainties are resolved. Since neither the United States nor the individual states will pony up the huge losses sustained by the regulated firms, the challenges have to be allowed before the statute is implemented and not afterwards. How this issue will play out in litigation no one can say for sure. But it would be, in my view, irresponsible for the Senate to pass any health reform legislation that does not address the serious constitutional infirmities found in the Reid Bill.

CONCLUSION: This ill-conceived legislation has many provisions that regulate different aspects of private health-insurance companies. Taken together, the combined force of these provisions raises serious constitutional questions. I think that these provisions are so intertwined with the rest of the legislation that it is difficult to see how the entire statute could survive if one of its components is defective to its core. How courts will deal with these difficult issues is of course not known, but rate-regulation cases normally attract a higher level of scrutiny than, say, land-use decisions.

There is, moreover, no quick fix that will eliminate the Reid Bill's major constitutional defects. It would, of course, be a catastrophe if the Congress sought to put this program into place before its constitutionality were tested. Most ratemaking challenges are done on the strength of the record, and I see no reason why a court would let a health-insurance company be driven into bankruptcy before it could present its case that the mixture of regulations and subsidies makes it impossible to earn a reasonable return on its capital. At the very least, therefore, there are massive problems of delayed implementation that will plague any health-care legislation from the date of its passage. I should add that the many broad delegations to key administrative officials will themselves give rise to major delays and additional challenges on statutory or constitutional grounds.

The health of the American people should not be held hostage to such unwise legislation. The Senate should reject the Reid Bill because of the unsustainability of the statutory scheme regulating health-insurance markets. But there is also little doubt that its central arrangements are unconstitutional, and will face serious legal challenge for years to come.