EBOOK Tough Luck Constitution and the Assault on Healthcare Reform

Chief Justice John Roberts stunned the nation by upholding the Affordable Care Act--more commonly known as Obamacare. In The Tough Luck Constitution and the Assault on Health Care Reform, Andrew Koppelman explains how the Court&'s conservatives embraced the arguments of a fringe libertarian legal movement bent on eviscerating the modern social welfare state. They instead advocate what Koppelman calls a "e;tough luck"e; philosophy: if you fall on hard times, too bad for you. He argues that the rule they proposed--that the government can&'t make citizens buy things--has nothing to do with the Constitution, and that it is in fact useless to stop real abuses of power. He goes on to dismantle the high court&'s construction of the commerce clause, arguing that it almost crippled America&'s ability to reverse rising health-care costs and shrinking access.  Ranging from early constitutional history to potential consequences, this is the definitive postmortem of the landmark Obamacare case.