Winning Progressive

(A note from Winning Progressive – Joanne’s post about the growing movement to amend the Constitution in order to free our democracy from the unlimited spending of billionaires and big corporations is especially timely given that President Obama just signaled support for such an effort.  In particular, the President said a few days ago that “I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t revisit it). Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change.”  We couldn’t agree more).

(By Joanne Boyer, cross-posted at Wisdom Voices)

“We are at a movement moment in history, said David Cobb, National Projects Director of Democracy Unlimited and lead speaker on the Midwest Barnstorming Tour of Move To Amend.Cobb’s stop in Edina, Minnesota, Sunday drew a packed crowd of well over 100 people on a glorious summer Sunday afternoon. “We are at a point where people are engaged and ready to take back control, and these are exciting times because it’s time for us to do what other movements have done in the course of history and say ‘this is our country.’”

Move To Amend is a coalition of hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of individuals committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a vibrant democracy that is genuinely accountable to the people, not corporate interests. Cobb’s Midwest Barnstorming tour is focused on getting individuals at the local level to become involved with the monumental – but doable – task of amending the U.S. Constitution in wake of the horrific U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United decision that allowed unlimited corporate money to flow into political campaigns.The tour continues this week with stops throughout Wisconsin and culminates this weekend in Milwaukee with the Midwest Regional Convergence.Information on specific tour stops and the weekend gathering can be found here.

Anyone can go to Move To Amend’s web site and sign their petition that says: We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.

But for those lucky enough to be on the Barnstorming tour stop, Cobb’s artful and engaging presentation offers those in attendance an invaluable history lesson on the role of corporations in U.S. history, dating back to that famous tea party in Boston, when colonists threw overboard only one kind of tea – tea from the East India Company, the major British corporation of its time.

“If we spend some time studying history and digging deeper, we’ll find that the American Revolution was not just a rejection of a monarchy, but also a people’s rebellion against the illegal corporation of its time,” Cobb said.

Cobb reminds the audience that the colonies were actually set up as “charters” with an appointed royal governor (CEO) who was tasked with the legal responsibility to plant crops, to rule and to govern in the name of the king so as to benefit the king and the other “stock holders” of, for example, the Massachusetts Bay Company.

“Let’s not forget,” Cob said, “that it was the unfair laws being written by Parliament – a Parliament that was 100 percent invested in stock in the East India Company that led to the American Revolution.What caused the colonists to stop groveling to the king, asking the king to become more socially responsible?It was the magic of the social movement of its time.

“Today, there is justifiable anger again in the United States.I call it righteous anger and I use that word carefully, because I am the grandson of a Baptist preacher.Righteous anger only comes from anger over injustice or exploitation and it requires action.Righteous anger is what provoked the abolitionist movement, it’s what helped the women come together in Seneca Falls, and it was what was behind the trade unions and the civil rights movements.And we are at that moment again.

“It’s what transforms your anger into joy, helping create a society with a just system.That’s a joyful experience…working in solidarity with good men and women who share those values.You don’t just stay angry when you engage in the work of change.”

And what work there is to be done.Amending the constitution is no easy task, but as Cobb reminds the audience, 500 years ago, people believed in the “sovereign” authority of a king to declare how society was run. “500 years ago that’s all there was, and 500 years is nothing more than a blink of an eye (in terms of history),” Cobb said.“When people say it’s too hard (amending the constitution), they haven’t been paying attention to history.Profound changes happen when people commit to change.People started acting and thinking differently in the colonies and things changed.If it’s true that they (the power elite of today) have hijacked our country, then we need to think and act differently today.And we are starting to do that.”

Cobb concludes his presentation by reminding people it was a supreme act of judicial activism that allowed 5 individuals to tell 300 million people that corporations are people.  “It was an illogical and stupid idea,” Cobb said.  “Corporate personhood is how the ruling elite stole the country from us and they used our legal system to legitimize the theft.  It’s time for us to do what other movements have done and say, ‘This is our country.’

“At Move To Amend, we’re making a demand in the form of a constitutional amendment.  We are saying two things: One, abolish the concept that corporations have constitutional rights.  That’s why principled conservatives are willing to join us.  Only human beings have constitutional rights.  And second, money is not speech.  That’s something the courts created.  Wealthy people do not have more rights to speech than anyone else.”

How can individuals affect change and be part of the social movement underway?There’s no better way to start than by perusing the Move To Amend web site, digging into their FAQs, signing the petition and getting involved with a local chapter of Move To Amend.And, always feel free to say, “No, that’s not true” to anyone who says, “Corporations are people, my friend.”

As we celebrate our nation’s independence, now is a good day to commit some time to preserving the values and principles that make our nation great.  Here are three things you can do:

1. Register To Vote: The cornerstone of our democracy is the right to vote.  Make sure that you are registered, and commit to registering five other people to vote.  To assist in this effort, use the Obama campaign’s great website with state-by-state information on how to get registered and how to vote on election day.

2. Protect the Right to Vote: As we’ve explained previously, conservatives have launched an all out attack on voting rights. Even though voter fraud is far rarer than UFO sightings or being struck and killed by lighting, a number of states have passed or are trying to pass voter ID laws and other provisions designed to make it more difficult to vote or to register to vote.  If you live in a state with a voter ID law, help other people get the IDs they need by using these state-by-state guides or by setting up an a voter ID assistance project in your area.

3. Read About Our Nation’s Principles: As columnist E.J. Dionne recently explained, it is important that progressives understand our nation’s history and the values upon which our nation is based. Those values go far beyond the rugged individualism that conservatives obsess over, and also include the belief that we the people are all in this together to make a more perfect union and a better society.  Today is a good time to go back and read our nation’s cornerstone documents so that we can all remember what it is that we are working to preserve and improve with our involvement in our nation’s political system.

The National Archives has set up a Charters of Freedom website where you can read and learn more about key documents in our nation’s history.  We recommend reading over at least the three key ones – the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence.

And if you would like to read more about those documents and what they do and should mean for our society today, we’d recommend checking out the writings of Yale University law professor Akhil Reed Amar.    Professor Amar has written three especially good books on our nation’s cornerstone documents – America’s Constitution: A Biography, The Bill of Rights, Creation and Reconstruction, and For the People: What the Constitution Really Says About Your Rights.   If you are looking for some informative reading about the values and aspirations our nation was founded upon, give Professor Amar’s books a read.

(By NCrissie B)

The media reporting a 5-4 Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act is not wrong, but it’s not exactly right either. In their 193-page decision, the Court weighed several issues: whether the case was premature under the Tax Anti-Injunction Act, whether the individual mandate was authorized by the Commerce, Necessary and Proper, or Taxing and Spending Clauses, and whether the Medicaid expansion was a legitimate inducement or an unconstitutional coercion of state action. The votes were different on each issue, and those differences may be significant in future cases.

Was the case premature under the Tax Anti-Injunction Act? NO (9-0)

The Tax Anti-Injunction Act (TAIA), first passed in 1867 and reenacted in 1954, prohibits courts from blocking the collection of taxes enacted by Congress. Instead, individuals must first pay the tax. Then, if they have legal grounds to object, they may petition the IRS for a refund and file a lawsuit if the IRS does not respond. Thus, a tax cannot be challenged in court until it has been paid.

As mechanism for enforcing the individual mandate is a “penalty” paid to the IRS, and as neither the mandate nor the “penalty” take effect until 2014, no one has yet paid that “penalty.” Some legal scholars argued that – because the “penalty” looks a lot like a “tax” – the individual mandate could not be challenged until the “tax” was due and paid, in 2014. The Obama administration did not raise this defense, but the Court solicited briefs from other parties and considered the issue.

– Chief Justice Roberts held that as the TAIA was enacted by Congress, Congress has the authority to decide whether the TAIA will apply to a law. Congress expresses such decisions by using or not using “tax” and related words in drafting a law. As Congress did not term the individual mandate “penalty” a “tax” – Chief Justice Roberts held – Congress did not intend the TAIA to apply to that provision and the challenges to the ACA were not premature. No Justices dissented.

Was the individual mandate authorized by the Commerce, Necessary and Proper, or Taxing and Spending Clauses? NO (1-3-1-4), NO (5-4), YES (5-4)

The Obama administration claimed the individual mandate was authorized by the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and/or the Taxing and Spending Clause. Note that the Court did not have to find the individual mandate was authorized by all three or even two of these three clauses. Any one would suffice. The Court split differently on each clause:

• Commerce Clause: NO (1-3-1-4)– Chief Justice Roberts held that while Congress has long regulated the supply of goods and services, Congress may not regulate the demand for goods and services under the Commerce Clause. That is, Congress may regulate market “activity,” but not market “inactivity.” Contrary to some media reports, Chief Justice Roberts did not “narrow” Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause. He simply refused to expand that authority to cover demand or “inactivity.”

  – Justices Scalia, Kennedy, and Alito concurred, making essentially the same argument (but with more mentions of broccoli).

  –Justice Thomas concurred in a separate opinion that would have narrowed Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause.

  – Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented, writing that almost everyone buys health care at some point, either through health insurance or “self-insurance.” Thus, they argued, almost everyone “participates in” the health care market and Congress may regulate that under the Commerce Clause.

• Necessary and Proper Clause: NO (5-4)– Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito in a separate opinion, held that the Necessary and Proper Clause could not stand alone to authorize an act of Congress that was not authorized under another provision of the Constitution. It was not, in Chief Justice Roberts’ wording, a “by any means necessary” provision.

  – Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented, arguing that the guaranteed issue and community rating provisions of the ACA would fail without the individual mandate, thus the mandate was “necessary and proper.”

• Taxing and Spending Clause: YES (5-4)– Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, held that the individual mandate could reasonably be read to establish a tax for people who did not buy health insurance. While Congress did not invoke the TAIA by calling the “shared responsibility fee” a tax, Chief Justice Roberts held that the TAIA issue was a statutory decision of Congress, while the Taxing and Spending Clause issue was a separate constitutional decision for the Court.

  – Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito dissented, arguing the Court must either find the “penalty” or “shared responsibility fee” was a “tax” (making the entire case premature under the TAIA) or was not a “tax” (making the individual mandate unconstitutional).

– Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan held that because the individual mandate was constitutional under the Taxing and Spending Clause, there was no need to consider whether the rest of the ACA could survive without the mandate.

– Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito dissented, arguing that Congress had not specified that the rest of the ACA could be upheld without the individual mandate, and indeed that the rest of the ACA would be unworkable without the mandate. They would have overturned the entire ACA.

Did the Medicaid expansion induce or coerce state action? PENALTY NARROWED: 3-2-4

– Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Justices Breyer and Kagan, held that the Medicaid expansion provision – which would have withheld all of Medicaid funding unless a state expanded Medicaid eligibility to all adults earning less than 133% of the federal poverty level – was indeed unconstitutionally coercive. Cutting off all federal Medicaid funds to states that did not expand eligibility would have gutted their budgets, forcing them to end existing Medicaid programs, raise taxes to make up for lost federal funding, or cut other state programs. However, they held that the provision was constitutional if read to apply only to new federal funds designated for expanded Medicaid eligibility, and thus they interpreted the provision that way.

– Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissented in part, arguing that the Medicaid expansion provision was an inducement similar to previous federal changes in Medicaid, and concurred in part, accepting Chief Justice Roberts’ remedy.

– Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito concurred in part, agreeing that the Medicaid expansion was coercive rather than an inducement, and dissented in part, arguing the only remedy was to strike the entire Medicaid expansion provision.

Tomorrow we’ll discuss what the decision means – and what it doesn’t – for the future of the ACA, Medicaid, and the Commerce Clause.

(Crossposted from Blogistan Polytechnic Institute (BPICampus.com))

By Josh Marks

Progressives want perfection. For purists, anything less than Swedish-style single payer universal health care, or “Medicare for All,” is a failure and not worth fighting for. And yes, the ultimate goal always should be single payer universal health care in America. I recommend watching the documentary “The Healthcare Movie,” narrated by Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland, that compares Canada’s universal medical system to America’s for-profit system. And then get involved by supporting California OneCare —  an online grassroots organizing network for single payer universal health care in The Golden State.

But just because single payer is the goal, that doesn’t mean progressives should abandon the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the historic health care reform legislation that faces its biggest test this week in front of the Supreme Court. The nine justices will hear arguments for and against the law. The first and biggest issue the court will address is the individual mandate to buy insurance by 2014 or pay a financial penalty, known as the shared responsibility payment.

The Obama Administration rightly argues that the uninsured put a disproportionate burden on the system. And U.S. health policy expert Dr. Len Nichols makes a strong argument that the individual mandate is necessary to achieve universal health care:

“Without the mandate, some who could afford it (about 20% of the uninsured today) would refuse to buy insurance but would still show up in hospitals and ask for care in the event of serious illness. Humanely delivered urgent care and collection difficulties mean that the cost of this care is shifted to the rest of us. That is, without a mandate, not all who get care will pay their fair share, and this would undermine political support for the system in the long run. By the way, these “free riders” are what energized former Governor Romney (and other Republicans at the time) to support purchase mandates.”

So the attacks on “Obamacare” by Fox News and the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party are less about the constitution and more about a cynical election year attack on President Obama. That is why it is so important that progressives organize to stand up for the ACA, even if the legislation is not exactly what many of us wanted. It is important in defending ACA that these benefits be clearly articulated to the American people. Here is a summary of the health care reform benefits, both broad and specific, from the Associated Press and other sources.

– Provides coverage to more than 30 million uninsured.

– Expands Medicaid to cover more uninsured low-income people.

– Young adults can stay on their parent’s plan until age 26.

– Health plans must provide free preventive care without charging co-pays.

– Companies with 50 or more employees must provide health coverage or pay fine.

– Imposes taxes and fees on health care industry, including 10% tax on cancer-causing indoor tanning.

– Significantly increases federal regulation of the health insurance industry.

– Ends denial of coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.

– Ends lifetime spending limits on health care coverage.

– The right to appeal a denied claim to an independent reviewer.

– You can choose any primary care doctor or pediatrician you want.

– You can visit any emergency room without penalty.

– Pharmaceutical companies must publicly report payments to doctors.

– More breastfeeding rooms and rest breaks for nursing mothers in workplaces.

– Large restaurant chains must provide calorie content on the menu.

– Incentivizes companies to start wellness initiatives.

These are just some of the many benefits that are either already in place or will take effect in 2014. These seem like common sense reforms that everyone can agree on right? If there was a rational and reasonable opposition I would say yes. But the Republicans and their right-wing allies have framed the health care reform in scary and apocalyptic terms. They have managed to convince a portion of the American people that “Obamacare” means death panels and Obama’s socialized medicine storm troopers forcing granny off life support.

Here is Dr. Nichols again discussing what this is really about for conservatives, besides blindly attacking Obama.

“One must conclude then that either conservatives do not want all to be covered, or they do not want a government strong enough to solve the problems of the uninsured. One of the ironies of the current debate is that some influential conservatives initially supported the individual mandate before they later rejected it. Indeed, support for the mandate has a complicated history among Democrats as well, including the fact that President Obama was initially reluctant to back it. Of course, the debate about the constitutionality of the individual mandate is not really about health policy at all, but about the powers of the federal government. Opponents apparently fear government—and taxes—more than they are bothered by the preventable deaths of their fellow citizens who cannot purchase insurance today for health or income reasons. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimates that 20,000 Americans die each year from the lack of the timely care which they would have received if they had had conventional health insurance. And the vast majority of the uninsured cannot afford health insurance at today’s prices. Choices the court will make, like philosophical positions, actually have consequences.”

(By NCrissie B)

There’s been a lot of debate about personhood lately. The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United and Mitt Romney’s “corporations are people” remark invite discussion of whether or to what extent corporations are legal persons. Although they have lost twice in Colorado and lost last year in Mississippi, the self-styled “Personhood Movement” pursue state constitutional amendments declaring that a fertilized ovum is a legal person. Such amendments may appear on ballots this November in Arkansas, Colorado, Ohio, and Oklahoma.

So if we’re debating whether corporations and fertilized ova are legal “persons,” it should be obvious that women and people of color are legal “persons,” right? Well, not exactly. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment reads:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

That seems clear enough. The first sentence guarantees citizenship to all “persons” born or naturalized in the U.S. “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The first clause of the second sentence guarantees that all “citizens” receive all of the privileges and immunities of citizenship, the second clause requires states to ensure that any “person” receives due process of law, and the final clause requires states to ensure that any “person” receives equal protection of the law.

What do those words mean?

It turns out that seemingly clear language isn’t so clear. The Citizenship Clause includes the qualifier “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” That excludes children born in the U.S. to foreign diplomats, who have diplomatic immunity from most federal and state laws. Does it also exclude children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants? The federal and state governments can arrest, try, and imprison undocumented immigrants and the federal government can deport them, yet Republicans introduced a bill last year that would declare undocumented immigrants and their children are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. or state governments because they are not legal residents.

And what about the “persons” guaranteed Due Process and Equal Protection? As we saw last week, the State of Texas argued in 1950 that “persons” did not include Latinos. While the Supreme Court unanimously disagreed in 1954, we can’t be sure what today’s Court would say. For example, last January Justice Antonin Scalia said “persons” does not include women. In his dissenting opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, Justice Scalia argued that “persons” does not include LGBTs, employing the bizarre logic that anti-LGBT laws apply equally against everyone. Justice Clarence Thomas joined in Scalia’s dissent, and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was even more explicit:

State universities are not free to create any specially protected classes other than those dictated by the General Assembly. Your question is, why is that not a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. Frankly, the category of sexual orientation would never have been contemplated by the people who wrote and voted for and passed the 14th Amendment.

Originalism and risk

Justice Scalia and Attorney General Cuccinelli both advocate originalism, a legal theory that claims constitutional words and phrases should be interpreted based on how they were commonly understood at the time they were enacted.

For example, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, women could not vote in most states. Several states barred women from certain professions, and some still did not allow married women to own property or sign contracts independently of their husbands. The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment did not immediately overturn such laws. Thus, originalists argue, “persons” was not commonly understood to include women – in that context, at that time – and courts should not interpret Fourteenth Amendment “persons” to include women today. The State of Texas made a similar argument in 1950 regarding Latinos, and Republicans make similar arguments today regarding LGBTs. Like many conservative arguments, originalism tells a story that feels sensible.

Yet it ignores a long-standing general principle of legal writing: that ambiguities in a statute or contract should be construed against the drafter. At first glance that principle feels wrong. Shouldn’t the drafters be the people who best understand what the words mean? They wrote the document, after all!

Yet if you’ve looked warily at a contract and been brushed off with “Oh don’t worry about that,” you understand why this principle exists: it requires those who write a contract, statute, or constitutional amendment to use precise language. The alternative invites lawmakers to hide behind vague language that seems to mean one thing – so it will be more easily accepted – yet will later be argued to mean something else. If you want a law to mean X and only X, then write it to say X and only X … and see if you can get it passed.

“We the People” includes all of us

By this principle, if the Fourteenth Amendment drafters had intended it to include only men, they should have written “men.” They didn’t. Nor did they write “blacks” or “Negroes,” to make clear the amendment did not include other persons of color. Nor did they write “persons who practice natural relations,” as heterosexuals might have been described at that time. They wrote “persons” …

… and the word they chose includes all of us. Even those whose political voice was not yet strong enough to demand and achieve inclusion in 1868.

And that’s what originalism is really about. It says the most powerful people in our society – those who write laws – should not bear the risk of vague language. Instead, originalists argue, the powerless should bear that risk. If people like you didn’t have enough clout to demand inclusion when “persons” was voted on in 1868, then you are not a “person” in 2012.

Originalism fits hand-in-glove with the other topics we’ve discussed this week. Republicans say government should protect the privileged – those who already have wealth and power – and push risks down on the rest of us.

Democrats insist “We the People” includes all of us. The two parties are not the same.

(Crossposted from Blogistan Polytechnic Institute (BPICampus.com))

There was good news out of Washington DC earlier this week when another federal court upheld the constitutionality of President Obama’s historic health care reform legislation.  In the case of Seven-Sky v. Holder, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which is one of twelve appellate courts that are the last stop before the U.S. Supreme Court, rejected the argument that health care reform’s individual mandate provision exceeded Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause provision of the U.S. Constitution.  the decision, authored by Judge Laurence Silberman, is the second time in the past few months that a conservative, Republican appointed Judge has upheld the constitutionality of President Obama’s signature legislative victory.

As we’ve previously explained, the 2009 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act made numerous fundamental reforms to our nation’s broken health care system.  These reforms will expand health insurance coverage to 32 million more Americans, provide substantial assistance of individuals and small businesses seeking to purchase insurance, end abusive insurance industry practices such as pre-existing condition denials, and close the Medicare prescription drug coverage doughnut hole. While a single-payer Medicare-for-all system combined with an aggressive effort to rationalize health care spending is necessary to truly fix our broken health care system, the 2009 health care reform legislation represented real progress that will save lives and money.

The biggest political hurdle facing health care reform is the “shared responsibility” provision of the Act, which is more frequently referred to as the “individual mandate.”  Under this provision, all Americans are required to purchase health insurance or to pay a penalty if they fail to do so.  While many people do not like the thought of the government being able to tell them that they have to purchase something, the reality is that the individual mandate is necessary for health care reform to work.  Without such a mandate, pre-existing condition exclusions could not be eliminated, because otherwise people would simply refuse to purchase insurance until they get sick knowing that they could not then be denied coverage.  In addition, the mandate is necessary to reducing overall costs because it brings more people into the system and, therefore, increases the number of healthy people paying in.

Ever since health care reform was signed into law, conservative activists have sought to have the courts declare it unconstitutional with the individual mandate as the focus of those challenges.  As the DC Circuit stated in Seven-Sky v. Holder:

Appellants’ central objection to the mandate is that Congress, for the first time, has actually commanded that all Americans purchase a product, health insurance, that many of them have never purchased before, never wish to purchase, and may never need. Appellants do not question that Congress can regulate the interstate health care and health insurance markets, or that Congress reasonably could conclude that decisions about whether to purchase health insurance substantially affect interstate commerce. The contested issue here is whether the Government can require an immensely broad group of people–all Americans, including uninsured persons with no involvement in the health insurance and health care markets–to buy health insurance now, based on the mere likelihood that most will, at some point, need health care, thus virtually inevitably enter that market, and consequently substantially affect the health insurance market.  (p. 28).

The shift to the “substantial effects” doctrine in the early twentieth century recognized the reality that national economic problems are often the result of millions of individuals engaging in behavior that, in isolation, is seemingly unrelated to interstate commerce.  [  ]  That accepted assumption undermines appellants’ argument; its very premise is that the magnitude of any one individual’s actions is irrelevant; the only thing that matters is whether the national problem Congress has identified is one that substantially affects interstate commerce. Indeed, in case after case, a version of appellants’ argument–that Congress’s power to regulate national economic problems, even those resulting from the aggregated effects of intrastate activity, only extends to particular individuals if they have also affirmatively engaged in interstate commerce–has been rejected on that basis. (p. 35)

The Court then when on to explain that Congress clearly has the constitutional authority under the Commerce Clause to regulate the health insurance industry, and that the individual mandate was a key part to carrying out that authority: