NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS ET AL. v. SEBELIUS, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, ET AL.

567 U.S. 519

 

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

Argued March 26, 27, 28, 2012—Decided June 28, 2012*

ROBERTS, C. J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and III–C, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined; an opinion with respect to Part IV, in which BREYER and KAGAN, JJ., joined; and an opinion with respect to Parts III–A, III–B, and III–D. GINSBURG, J., filed an opinion concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined, and in which BREYER and KAGAN, JJ., joined as to Parts I, II, III, and IV. SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., filed a dissenting opinion. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and III–C, an opinion with respect to Part IV, in which JUSTICE BREYER and JUSTICE KAGAN join, and an opinion with respect to Parts III–A, III–B, and III–D.

Today we resolve constitutional challenges to two provi­sions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010: the individual mandate, which requires individuals to purchase a health insurance policy providing a mini­mum level of coverage; and the Medicaid expansion, which gives funds to the States on the condition that they pro­vide specified health care to all citizens whose income falls below a certain threshold. We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders. We ask only whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to enact the challenged provisions.

In our federal system, the National Government pos­sesses only limited powers; the States and the people retain the remainder. Nearly two centuries ago, Chief Justice Marshall observed that “the question respecting the extent of the powers actually granted” to the Federal Government “is perpetually arising, and will probably continue to arise, as long as our system shall exist.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 405 (1819). In this case we must again determine whether the Constitution grants Congress powers it now asserts, but which many States and individuals believe it does not possess. Resolv­ing this controversy requires us to examine both the limits of the Government’s power, and our own limited role in policing those boundaries.

The Federal Government “is acknowledged by all to be one of enumerated powers.” Ibid. That is, rather than granting general authority to perform all the conceiv­able functions of government, the Constitution lists, or enumerates, the Federal Government’s powers. Congress may, for example, “coin Money,” “establish Post Offices,” and “raise and support Armies.” Art. I, §8, cls. 5, 7, 12. The enumeration of powers is also a limitation of pow­ers, because “[t]he enumeration presupposes something not enumerated.” Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 195 (1824).The Constitution’s express conferral of some powers makes clear that it does not grant others. And the Federal Government “can exercise only the powers granted to it.” McCulloch, supra, at 405.

Today, the restrictions on government power foremost in many Americans’ minds are likely to be affirmative pro­hibitions, such as contained in the Bill of Rights. These affirmative prohibitions come into play, however, only where the Government possesses authority to act in the first place. If no enumerated power authorizes Congress to pass a certain law, that law may not be enacted, even if it would not violate any of the express prohibitions in the Bill of Rights or elsewhere in the Constitution.

Indeed, the Constitution did not initially include a Bill of Rights at least partly because the Framers felt the enu­meration of powers sufficed to restrain the Government. As Alexander Hamilton put it, “the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS.” The Federalist No. 84, p. 515 (C. Ros­siter ed. 1961). And when the Bill of Rights was ratified, it made express what the enumeration of powers neces­sarily implied: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution . . . are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 10. The Federal Government has expanded dramatically over the past two centuries, but it still must show that a consti­tutional grant of power authorizes each of its actions. See, e.g., United States v. Comstock, 560 U. S. ___ (2010).

The same does not apply to the States, because the Con­stitution is not the source of their power. The Consti­tution may restrict state governments—as it does, for example, by forbidding them to deny any person the equal protection of the laws. But where such prohibitions do not apply, state governments do not need constitutional au­thorization to act. The States thus can and do perform many of the vital functions of modern government—punishing street crime, running public schools, and zoning property for development, to name but a few—even though the Constitution’s text does not authorize any government to do so. Our cases refer to this general power of govern­ing, possessed by the States but not by the Federal Gov­ernment, as the “police power.” See, e.g., United States v. Morrison, 529 U. S. 598, 618–619 (2000).

“State sovereignty is not just an end in itself: Rather, federalism secures to citizens the liberties that derive from the diffusion of sovereign power.” New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 181 (1992) (internal quotation marks omitted). Because the police power is controlled by50 different States instead of one national sovereign, the facets of governing that touch on citizens’ daily lives are normally administered by smaller governments closer to the governed. The Framers thus ensured that powers which “in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people” were held by gov­ernments more local and more accountable than a distant federal bureaucracy. The Federalist No. 45, at 293 (J. Madison). The independent power of the States also serves as a check on the power of the Federal Government: “By denying any one government complete jurisdiction over all the concerns of public life, federalism protects the liberty of the individual from arbitrary power.” Bond v. United States, 564 U. S. ___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 9–10).

This case concerns two powers that the Constitution does grant the Federal Government, but which must be read carefully to avoid creating a general federal authority akin to the police power. The Constitution authorizes Congress to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” Art. I, §8, cl. 3. Our precedents read that to mean that Congress may regulate “the channels of interstate com­merce,” “persons or things in interstate commerce,” and “those activities that substantially affect interstate com­merce.” Morrison, supra, at 609 (internal quotation marks omitted). The power over activities that substantially affect interstate commerce can be expansive. That power has been held to authorize federal regulation of such seem­ingly local matters as a farmer’s decision to grow wheat for himself and his livestock, and a loan shark’s extor­tionate collections from a neighborhood butcher shop. See Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942); Perez v. United States, 402 U. S. 146 (1971).

Congress may also “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Im­posts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 1. Put simply, Con­gress may tax and spend. This grant gives the Federal Government considerable influence even in areas where it cannot directly regulate. The Federal Government may enact a tax on an activity that it cannot authorize, forbid, or otherwise control. See, e.g., License Tax Cases, 5 Wall. 462, 471 (1867). And in exercising its spending power, Congress may offer funds to the States, and may condition those offers on compliance with specified conditions. See, e.g., College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecond­ary Ed. Expense Bd., 527 U. S. 666, 686 (1999). These offers may well induce the States to adopt policies that the Federal Government itself could not impose. See, e.g., South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U. S. 203, 205–206 (1987) (con­ditioning federal highway funds on States raising their drinking age to 21).

The reach of the Federal Government’s enumerated powers is broader still because the Constitution authorizes Congress to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers.” Art. I, §8, cl. 18. We have long read this provision to give Congress great latitude in exercising its powers: “Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitu­tion, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.” McCulloch, 4 Wheat., at 421.

Our permissive reading of these powers is explained in part by a general reticence to invalidate the acts of the Nation’s elected leaders. “Proper respect for a co-ordinate branch of the government” requires that we strike down an Act of Congress only if “the lack of constitutional authority to pass [the] act in question is clearly demon­strated.” United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629, 635 (1883).Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.

Our deference in matters of policy cannot, however, become abdication in matters of law. “The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the constitution is written.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 176 (1803). Our respect for Congress’s policy judgments thus can never extend so far as to disavow restraints on federal power that the Constitution carefully constructed. “The peculiar circumstances of the moment may render a measure more or less wise, but cannot render it more or less constitutional.” Chief Justice John Marshall, A Friend of the Constitution No. V, Alexandria Gazette, July 5, 1819, in John Marshall’s Defense of McCulloch v. Mary­land 190–191 (G. Gunther ed. 1969). And there can be no question that it is the responsibility of this Court to en­force the limits on federal power by striking down acts of Congress that transgress those limits. Marbury v. Madi­son, supra, at 175–176.

The questions before us must be considered against the background of these basic principles.

 

I

 

   In 2010, Congress enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 124 Stat. 119. The Act aims to in­crease the number of Americans covered by health in­surance and decrease the cost of health care. The Act’s 10 titles stretch over 900 pages and contain hundreds of provisions. This case concerns constitutional challenges to two key provisions, commonly referred to as the individual mandate and the Medicaid expansion. The individual mandate requires most Americans to maintain “minimum essential” health insurance coverage.26 U. S. C. §5000A. The mandate does not apply to some individuals, such as prisoners and undocumented aliens. §5000A(d). Many individuals will receive the required cov­erage through their employer, or from a government pro­gram such as Medicaid or Medicare. See §5000A(f). But for individuals who are not exempt and do not receive health insurance through a third party, the means of satisfying the requirement is to purchase insurance from a private company. Beginning in 2014, those who do not comply with the mandate must make a “[s]hared responsibility payment” to the Federal Government. §5000A(b)(1). That payment, which the Act describes as a “penalty,” is calculated as a percentage of household income, subject to a floor based on a specified dollar amount and a ceiling based on the aver­age annual premium the individual would have to pay for qualifying private health insurance. §5000A(c). In 2016, for example, the penalty will be 2.5 percent of an individ­ual’s household income, but no less than $695 and no more than the average yearly premium for insurance that co­vers 60 percent of the cost of 10 specified services (e.g., prescription drugs and hospitalization). Ibid.; 42 U. S. C. §18022. The Act provides that the penalty will be paid to the Internal Revenue Service with an individual’s taxes, and “shall be assessed and collected in the same manner” as tax penalties, such as the penalty for claiming too large an income tax refund. 26 U. S. C. §5000A(g)(1). The Act, however, bars the IRS from using several of its nor­mal enforcement tools, such as criminal prosecutions and levies. §5000A(g)(2). And some individuals who are sub­ject to the mandate are nonetheless exempt from the penalty—for example, those with income below a certain threshold and members of Indian tribes. §5000A(e).

On the day the President signed the Act into law, Flor­ida and 12 other States filed a complaint in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Florida. Those plaintiffs—who are both respondents and petitioners here, depending on the issue—were subsequently joined by 13more States, several individuals, and the National Fed­eration of Independent Business. The plaintiffs alleged, among other things, that the individual mandate provi­sions of the Act exceeded Congress’s powers under Article I of the Constitution. The District Court agreed, holding that Congress lacked constitutional power to enact the individual mandate. 780 F. Supp. 2d 1256 (ND Fla. 2011).The District Court determined that the individual man­date could not be severed from the remainder of the Act, and therefore struck down the Act in its entirety. Id., at 1305–1306.

The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. The court affirmed the Dis­trict Court’s holding that the individual mandate exceeds Congress’s power. 648 F. 3d 1235 (2011). The panel unanimously agreed that the individual mandate did not impose a tax, and thus could not be authorized by Con­gress’s power to “lay and collect Taxes.” U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 1. A majority also held that the individual mandate was not supported by Congress’s power to “regu­late Commerce . . . among the several States.” Id., cl. 3. According to the majority, the Commerce Clause does not empower the Federal Government to order individuals to engage in commerce, and the Government’s efforts to cast the individual mandate in a different light were unpersua­sive. Judge Marcus dissented, reasoning that the individ­ual mandate regulates economic activity that has a clear effect on interstate commerce.

Having held the individual mandate to be unconstitu­tional, the majority examined whether that provision could be severed from the remainder of the Act. The ma­jority determined that, contrary to the District Court’s view, it could. The court thus struck down only the indi­vidual mandate, leaving the Act’s other provisions intact.648 F. 3d, at 1328.

Other Courts of Appeals have also heard challenges to the individual mandate. The Sixth Circuit and the D. C. Circuit upheld the mandate as a valid exercise of Con­gress’s commerce power. See Thomas More Law Center v. Obama, 651 F. 3d 529 (CA6 2011); Seven-Sky v. Holder, 661 F. 3d 1 (CADC 2011). The Fourth Circuit determined that the Anti-Injunction Act prevents courts from consid­ering the merits of that question. See Liberty Univ., Inc. v. Geithner, 671 F. 3d 391 (2011). That statute bars suits “for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax.” 26 U. S. C. §7421(a). A majority of the Fourth Circuit panel reasoned that the individual mandate’s penalty is a tax within the meaning of the Anti-Injunction Act, because it is a financial assessment collected by the IRS through the normal means of taxation. The majority therefore determined that the plaintiffs could not chal­lenge the individual mandate until after they paid the penalty.1

 

—————— 1The Eleventh Circuit did not consider whether the Anti-Injunction Act bars challenges to the individual mandate. The District Court had determined that it did not, and neither side challenged that holding on appeal. The same was true in the Fourth Circuit, but that court examined the question sua sponte because it viewed the Anti-InjunctionAct as a limit on its subject matter jurisdiction. See Liberty Univ., 671 F. 3d, at 400–401. The Sixth Circuit and the D. C. Circuit considered the question but determined that the Anti-Injunction Act did not apply. See Thomas More, 651 F. 3d, at 539–540 (CA6); Seven-Sky, 661 F. 3d, at 5–14 (CADC).——————

 

The second provision of the Affordable Care Act directly challenged here is the Medicaid expansion. Enacted in 1965, Medicaid offers federal funding to States to assist pregnant women, children, needy families, the blind, the elderly, and the disabled in obtaining medical care. See 42 U. S. C. §1396a(a)(10). In order to receive that funding, States must comply with federal criteria governing mat­ters such as who receives care and what services are pro­vided at what cost. By 1982 every State had chosen to participate in Medicaid. Federal funds received through the Medicaid program have become a substantial part of state budgets, now constituting over 10 percent of most States’ total revenue.

The Affordable Care Act expands the scope of the Medi­caid program and increases the number of individuals the States must cover. For example, the Act requires state programs to provide Medicaid coverage to adults with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, whereas many States now cover adults with children only if their income is considerably lower, and do not cover childless adults at all. See §1396a(a)(10)(A)(i)(VIII). The Act increases federal funding to cover the States’ costs in expanding Medicaid coverage, although States will bear a portion of the costs on their own. §1396d(y)(1). If a State does not comply with the Act’s new coverage require­ments, it may lose not only the federal funding for those requirements, but all of its federal Medicaid funds. See §1396c.

Along with their challenge to the individual mandate, the state plaintiffs in the Eleventh Circuit argued that the Medicaid expansion exceeds Congress’s constitutional powers. The Court of Appeals unanimously held that the Medicaid expansion is a valid exercise of Congress’s power under the Spending Clause. U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 1. And the court rejected the States’ claim that the threat­ened loss of all federal Medicaid funding violates the Tenth Amendment by coercing them into complying with the Medicaid expansion. 648 F. 3d, at 1264, 1268.

 We granted certiorari to review the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit with respect to both the individual mandate and the Medicaid expansion. 565 U. S. ___ (2011). Because no party supports the Elev­enth Circuit’s holding that the individual mandate can be completely severed from the remainder of the Affordable Care Act, we appointed an amicus curiae to defend that aspect of the judgment below. And because there is a reasonable argument that the Anti-Injunction Act de­prives us of jurisdiction to hear challenges to the individ­ual mandate, but no party supports that proposition, we appointed an amicus curiae to advance it.2   

—————— 2We appointed H. Bartow Farr III to brief and argue in support of the Eleventh Circuit’s judgment with respect to severability, and Robert A. Long to brief and argue the proposition that the Anti-Injunction Act bars the current challenges to the individual mandate. 565 U. S. ___ (2011). Both amici have ably discharged their assigned responsibilities.

 

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

 

III

 

  The Government advances two theories for the proposi­tion that Congress had constitutional authority to enact the individual mandate. First, the Government argues that Congress had the power to enact the mandate under the Commerce Clause. Under that theory, Congress may order individuals to buy health insurance because the failure to do so affects interstate commerce, and could un­dercut the Affordable Care Act’s other reforms. Second, the Government argues that if the commerce power does not support the mandate, we should nonetheless uphold it as an exercise of Congress’s power to tax. According to the Government, even if Congress lacks the power to direct individuals to buy insurance, the only effect of the indi­vidual mandate is to raise taxes on those who do not do so, and thus the law may be upheld as a tax.

 

A

 

  The Government’s first argument is that the individual mandate is a valid exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. According to the Government, the health care market is characterized by a significant cost-shifting problem. Every­one will eventually need health care at a time and to an extent they cannot predict, but if they do not have insur­ance, they often will not be able to pay for it. Because state and federal laws nonetheless require hospitals to provide a certain degree of care to individuals without regard to their ability to pay, see, e.g., 42 U. S. C. §1395dd; Fla. Stat. Ann. §395.1041, hospitals end up receiving compensation for only a portion of the services they pro­vide. To recoup the losses, hospitals pass on the cost to insurers through higher rates, and insurers, in turn, pass on the cost to policy holders in the form of higher pre­miums. Congress estimated that the cost of uncompen­sated care raises family health insurance premiums, on average, by over $1,000 per year. 42 U. S. C. §18091(2)(F).In the Affordable Care Act, Congress addressed the problem of those who cannot obtain insurance coverage because of preexisting conditions or other health issues. It did so through the Act’s “guaranteed-issue” and “community- rating” provisions. These provisions together prohibit in­surance companies from denying coverage to those with such conditions or charging unhealthy individuals higher premiums than healthy individuals. See §§300gg, 300gg–1, 300gg–3, 300gg–4. The guaranteed-issue and community-rating reforms do not, however, address the issue of healthy individuals who choose not to purchase insurance to cover potential healthcare needs. In fact, the reforms sharply exacerbate that problem, by providing an incentive for individuals to delay purchasing health insurance until they become sick, rely­ing on the promise of guaranteed and affordable coverage.  The reforms also threaten to impose massive new costs on insurers, who are required to accept unhealthy individuals but prohibited from charging them rates necessary to pay for their coverage. This will lead insurers to significantly increase premiums on everyone. See Brief for America’s Health Insurance Plans et al. as Amici Curiae in No. 11– 393 etc. 8–9.

The individual mandate was Congress’s solution to these problems. By requiring that individuals purchase health insurance, the mandate prevents cost-shifting by those who would otherwise go without it. In addition, the mandate forces into the insurance risk pool more healthy individuals, whose premiums on average will be higher than their health care expenses. This allows insurers to subsidize the costs of covering the unhealthy individuals the reforms require them to accept. The Government claims that Congress has power under the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses to enact this solution.

 

1

 

   The Government contends that the individual mandate is within Congress’s power because the failure to pur­chase insurance “has a substantial and deleterious effect on interstate commerce” by creating the cost-shifting prob­lem. Brief for United States 34. The path of our Com­merce Clause decisions has not always run smooth, see United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 552–559 (1995), but it is now well established that Congress has broad author­ity under the Clause. We have recognized, for example, that “[t]he power of Congress over interstate commerce is not confined to the regulation of commerce among the states,” but extends to activities that “have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.” United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 118–119 (1941). Congress’s power, more­over, is not limited to regulation of an activity that by itself substantially affects interstate commerce, but also extends to activities that do so only when aggregated with similar activities of others. See Wickard, 317 U. S., at 127–128.

Given its expansive scope, it is no surprise that Con­gress has employed the commerce power in a wide variety of ways to address the pressing needs of the time. But Congress has never attempted to rely on that power to compel individuals not engaged in commerce to purchase an unwanted product.3 Legislative novelty is not nec­essarily fatal; there is a first time for everything. But sometimes “the most telling indication of [a] severe con­stitutional problem . . . is the lack of historical precedent” for Congress’s action. Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Com­pany Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U. S. ___, ___ (2010) (slip op., at 25) (internal quotation marks omitted). At the very least, we should “pause to consider the implications of the Government’s arguments” when confronted with such new conceptions of federal power. Lopez, supra, at 564.

 

——————3The examples of other congressional mandates cited by JUSTICE GINSBURG, post, at 35, n. 10 (opinion concurring in part, concurring in judgment in part, and dissenting in part), are not to the contrary. Each of those mandates—to report for jury duty, to register for the draft, topurchase firearms in anticipation of militia service, to exchange gold currency for paper currency, and to file a tax return—are based on constitutional provisions other than the Commerce Clause. See Art. I, §8, cl. 9 (to “constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court”); id., cl. 12 (to “raise and support Armies”); id., cl. 16 (to “provide for organiz­ing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia”); id., cl. 5 (to “coin Money”); id., cl. 1 (to “lay and collect Taxes”). 19 Cite as: 567 U. S. ____ (2012). —————

 

The Constitution grants Congress the power to “regulate Commerce.” Art. I, §8, cl. 3 (emphasis added). The power to regulate commerce presupposes the existence of com­mercial activity to be regulated. If the power to “regulate” something included the power to create it, many of the provisions in the Constitution would be superfluous. For example, the Constitution gives Congress the power to “coin Money,” in addition to the power to “regulate the Value thereof.” Id., cl. 5. And it gives Congress the power ——————

to “raise and support Armies” and to “provide and main­tain a Navy,” in addition to the power to “make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.” Id., cls. 12–14. If the power to regulate the armed forces or the value of money included the power to bring the subject of the regulation into existence, the specific grant of such powers would have been unneces­sary. The language of the Constitution reflects the natu­ral understanding that the power to regulate assumes there is already something to be regulated. See Gibbons, 9 Wheat., at 188 (“[T]he enlightened patriots who framed our constitution, and the people who adopted it, must be understood to have employed words in their natural sense, and to have intended what they have said”).4

Our precedent also reflects this understanding. As expansive as our cases construing the scope of the com­merce power have been, they all have one thing in com­mon: They uniformly describe the power as reaching “activity.” It is nearly impossible to avoid the word when quoting them. See, e.g., Lopez, supra, at 560 (“Where economic activity substantially affects interstate com­merce, legislation regulating that activity will be sus­-

 

—————— 4 JUSTICE GINSBURG suggests that “at the time the Constitution was framed, to ‘regulate’ meant, among other things, to require action.” Post, at 23 (citing Seven-Sky v. Holder, 661 F. 3d 1, 16 (CADC 2011); brackets and some internal quotation marks omitted). But to reach this conclusion, the case cited by JUSTICE GINSBURG relied on a diction­ary in which “[t]o order; to command” was the fifth-alternative defini­tion of “to direct,” which was itself the second-alternative definition of “to regulate.” See Seven-Sky, supra, at 16 (citing S. Johnson, Diction­ary of the English Language (4th ed. 1773) (reprinted 1978)). It is unlikely that the Framers had such an obscure meaning in mind when they used the word “regulate.” Far more commonly, “[t]o regulate” meant “[t]o adjust by rule or method,” which presupposes something to adjust. 2 Johnson, supra, at 1619; see also Gibbons, 9 Wheat., at 196 (defining the commerce power as the power “to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed”). 

 

tained”); Perez, 402 U. S., at 154 (“Where the class of activities is regulated and that class is within the reach of federal power, the courts have no power to excise, as triv­ial, individual instances of the class” (emphasis in original; internal quotation marks omitted)); Wickard, supra, at 125 (“[E]ven if appellee’s activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substan­tial economic effect on interstate commerce”); NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 37 (1937) (“Al­though activities may be intrastate in character when separately considered, if they have such a close and sub­stantial relation to interstate commerce that their control is essential or appropriate to protect that commerce from burdens and obstructions, Congress cannot be denied the power to exercise that control”); see also post, at 15, 25–26, 28, 32 (GINSBURG, J., concurring in part, concurring in judgment in part, and dissenting in part).5

The individual mandate, however, does not regulate existing commercial activity. It instead compels individ­uals to become active in commerce by purchasing a product, on the ground that their failure to do so affects interstate commerce. Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Con­gress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast do­main to congressional authority. Every day individuals do not do an infinite number of things. In some cases they

 

—————— 5 JUSTICE GINSBURG cites two eminent domain cases from the 1890s to support the proposition that our case law does not “toe the activity versus inactivity line.” Post, at 24–25 (citing Monongahela Nav. Co. v. United States, 148 U. S. 312, 335–337 (1893), and Cherokee Nation v. Southern Kansas R. Co., 135 U. S. 641, 657–659 (1890)). The fact that the Fifth Amendment requires the payment of just compensation when the Government exercises its power of eminent domain does not turn the taking into a commercial transaction between the landowner and the Government, let alone a government-compelled transaction between the landowner and a third party.

 

decide not to do something; in others they simply fail to do it. Allowing Congress to justify federal regulation by pointing to the effect of inaction on commerce would bring countless decisions an individual could potentially make within the scope of federal regulation, and—under the Government’s theory—empower Congress to make those decisions for him.

   Applying the Government’s logic to the familiar case of Wickard v. Filburn shows how far that logic would carry us from the notion of a government of limited powers. In Wickard, the Court famously upheld a federal penalty im­posed on a farmer for growing wheat for consumption on his own farm. 317 U. S., at 114–115, 128–129. That amount of wheat caused the farmer to exceed his quota under a program designed to support the price of wheat by limiting supply. The Court rejected the farmer’s argument that growing wheat for home consumption was beyond the reach of the commerce power. It did so on the ground that the farmer’s decision to grow wheat for his own use al­lowed him to avoid purchasing wheat in the market. That decision, when considered in the aggregate along with sim­ilar decisions of others, would have had a substantial ef­fect on the interstate market for wheat. Id., at 127–129.

Wickard has long been regarded as “perhaps the most far reaching example of Commerce Clause authority over intrastate activity,” Lopez, 514 U. S., at 560, but the Gov­ernment’s theory in this case would go much further. Under Wickard it is within Congress’s power to regulate the market for wheat by supporting its price. But price can be supported by increasing demand as well as by decreasing supply. The aggregated decisions of some consumers not to purchase wheat have a substantial effect on the price of wheat, just as decisions not to purchase health insurance have on the price of insurance. Congress can therefore command that those not buying wheat do so, just as it argues here that it may command that those not buying health insurance do so. The farmer in Wickard was at least actively engaged in the production of wheat, and the Government could regulate that activity because of its effect on commerce. The Government’s theory here would effectively override that limitation, by establishing that individuals may be regulated under the Commerce Clause whenever enough of them are not doing something the Government would have them do.

Indeed, the Government’s logic would justify a manda­tory purchase to solve almost any problem. See Seven-Sky, 661 F. 3d, at 14–15 (noting the Government’s inability to “identify any mandate to purchase a product or service in interstate commerce that would be unconstitu­tional” under its theory of the commerce power). To consider a different example in the health care market, many Americans do not eat a balanced diet. That group makes up a larger percentage of the total population than those without health insurance. See, e.g., Dept. of Agriculture and Dept. of Health and Human Services, Dietary Guide­lines for Americans 1 (2010). The failure of that group to have a healthy diet increases health care costs, to a greater extent than the failure of the uninsured to pur­chase insurance. See, e.g., Finkelstein, Trogdon, Cohen, & Dietz, “Annual Medical Spending Attributable to Obesity: Payer- and Service-Specific Estimates,” 28 Health Affairs 822 (2009) (detailing the “undeniable link between ris­ing rates of obesity and rising medical spending,” and esti­mating that “the annual medical burden of obesity has risen to almost 10 percent of all medical spending and could amount to $147 billion per year in 2008”). Those in­creased costs are borne in part by other Americans who must pay more, just as the uninsured shift costs to the insured. See Center for Applied Ethics, “Voluntary Health Risks: Who Should Pay?”, 6 Issues in Ethics 6 (1993) (not­ing “overwhelming evidence that individuals with un­healthy habits pay only a fraction of the costs associated with their behaviors; most of the expense is borne by the rest of society in the form of higher insurance premiums, government expenditures for health care, and disability benefits”). Congress addressed the insurance problem by ordering everyone to buy insurance. Under the Gov­ernment’s theory, Congress could address the diet problem by ordering everyone to buy vegetables. See Dietary Guidelines, supra, at 19 (“Improved nutrition, appropriate eating behaviors, and increased physical activity have tre­mendous potential to . . . reduce health care costs”).

People, for reasons of their own, often fail to do things that would be good for them or good for society. Those failures—joined with the similar failures of others—can readily have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Under the Government’s logic, that authorizes Congress to use its commerce power to compel citizens to act as the Government would have them act.

   That is not the country the Framers of our Constitution envisioned. James Madison explained that the Commerce Clause was “an addition which few oppose and from which no apprehensions are entertained.” The Federalist No. 45, at 293. While Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause has of course expanded with the growth of the national economy, our cases have “always recognized that the power to regulate commerce, though broad indeed, has limits.” Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 196 (1968). The Government’s theory would erode those limits, permitting Congress to reach beyond the natural extent of its author­ity, “everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.” The Feder­alist No. 48, at 309 (J. Madison). Congress already enjoys vast power to regulate much of what we do. Accepting the Government’s theory would give Congress the same license to regulate what we do not do, fundamentally changing the relation between the citizen and the Federal Government.6

 

—————— 6In an attempt to recast the individual mandate as a regulation of commercial activity, JUSTICE GINSBURG suggests that “[a]n individual who opts not to purchase insurance from a private insurer can be seen as actively selecting another form of insurance: self-insurance.” Post, at 26. But “self-insurance” is, in this context, nothing more than a de­scription of the failure to purchase insurance. Individuals are no more “activ[e] in the self-insurance market” when they fail to purchase insurance, ibid., than they are active in the “rest” market when doing nothing.

 

To an economist, perhaps, there is no difference between activity and inactivity; both have measurable economic effects on commerce. But the distinction between doing something and doing nothing would not have been lost on the Framers, who were “practical statesmen,” not meta­physical philosophers. Industrial Union Dept., AFL–CIO v. American Petroleum Institute, 448 U. S. 607, 673 (1980) (Rehnquist, J., concurring in judgment). As we have ex­plained, “the framers of the Constitution were not mere visionaries, toying with speculations or theories, but practical men, dealing with the facts of political life as they understood them, putting into form the government they were creating, and prescribing in language clear and intelligible the powers that government was to take.” South Carolina v. United States, 199 U. S. 437, 449 (1905). The Framers gave Congress the power to regulate com­merce, not to compel it, and for over 200 years both our decisions and Congress’s actions have reflected this un­derstanding. There is no reason to depart from that un­derstanding now.

The Government sees things differently. It argues that because sickness and injury are unpredictable but una­voidable, “the uninsured as a class are active in the mar­ket for health care, which they regularly seek and obtain.” Brief for United States 50. The individual mandate “merely regulates how individuals finance and pay for that active participation—requiring that they do so through insurance, rather than through attempted self-insurance with the back-stop of shifting costs to others.” Ibid.

The Government repeats the phrase “active in the mar­ket for health care” throughout its brief, see id., at 7, 18, 34, 50, but that concept has no constitutional significance. An individual who bought a car two years ago and may buy another in the future is not “active in the car market” in any pertinent sense. The phrase “active in the market” cannot obscure the fact that most of those regulated by the individual mandate are not currently engaged in any commercial activity involving health care, and that fact is fatal to the Government’s effort to “regulate the uninsured as a class.” Id., at 42. Our precedents recognize Con­gress’s power to regulate “class[es] of activities,” Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U. S. 1, 17 (2005) (emphasis added), not classes of individuals, apart from any activity in which they are engaged, see, e.g., Perez, 402 U. S., at 153 (“Peti­tioner is clearly a member of the class which engages in ‘extortionate credit transactions’ . . .” (emphasis deleted)).

   The individual mandate’s regulation of the uninsured as a class is, in fact, particularly divorced from any link to existing commercial activity. The mandate primarily affects healthy, often young adults who are less likely to need significant health care and have other priorities for spending their money. It is precisely because these indi­viduals, as an actuarial class, incur relatively low healthcare costs that the mandate helps counter the effect of forcing insurance companies to cover others who impose greater costs than their premiums are allowed to reflect. See 42 U. S. C. §18091(2)(I) (recognizing that the mandate would “broaden the health insurance risk pool to include healthy individuals, which will lower health insurance premiums”). If the individual mandate is targeted at a class, it is a class whose commercial inactivity rather than activity is its defining feature.

The Government, however, claims that this does not matter. The Government regards it as sufficient to trigger Congress’s authority that almost all those who are unin­sured will, at some unknown point in the future, engage in a health care transaction. Asserting that “[t]here is no temporal limitation in the Commerce Clause,” the Gov­ernment argues that because “[e]veryone subject to this regulation is in or will be in the health care market,” they can be “regulated in advance.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 109 (Mar. 27, 2012).

The proposition that Congress may dictate the conduct of an individual today because of prophesied future ac­tivity finds no support in our precedent. We have said that Congress can anticipate the effects on commerce of an eco­nomic activity. See, e.g., Consolidated Edison Co. v. NLRB, 305 U. S. 197 (1938) (regulating the labor practices of utility companies); Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241 (1964) (prohibiting discrimination by hotel operators); Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294 (1964) (prohibiting discrimination by restaurant owners). But we have never permitted Congress to anticipate that activity itself in order to regulate individuals not currently engaged in commerce. Each one of our cases, including those cited by JUSTICE GINSBURG, post, at 20–21, involved preexisting economic activity. See, e.g., Wickard, 317 U. S., at 127–129 (producing wheat); Raich, supra, at 25 (growing marijuana).

   Everyone will likely participate in the markets for food, clothing, transportation, shelter, or energy; that does not authorize Congress to direct them to purchase particular products in those or other markets today. The Commerce Clause is not a general license to regulate an individual from cradle to grave, simply because he will predictably engage in particular transactions. Any police power to regulate individuals as such, as opposed to their activities, remains vested in the States.

The Government argues that the individual mandate can be sustained as a sort of exception to this rule, because health insurance is a unique product. According to the Government, upholding the individual mandate would not justify mandatory purchases of items such as cars or broccoli because, as the Government puts it, “[h]ealth in­surance is not purchased for its own sake like a car or broccoli; it is a means of financing health-care consump­tion and covering universal risks.” Reply Brief for United States 19. But cars and broccoli are no more purchased for their “own sake” than health insurance. They are purchased to cover the need for transportation and food.

The Government says that health insurance and healthcare financing are “inherently integrated.” Brief for United States 41. But that does not mean the compelled purchase of the first is properly regarded as a regulation of the second. No matter how “inherently integrated” health insurance and health care consumption may be, they are not the same thing: They involve different transactions, entered into at different times, with different providers. And for most of those targeted by the mandate, significant health care needs will be years, or even decades, away. The proximity and degree of connection between the mandate and the subsequent commercial activity is too lack­ing to justify an exception of the sort urged by the Gov­ernment. The individual mandate forces individuals into commerce precisely because they elected to refrain from commercial activity. Such a law cannot be sustained under a clause authorizing Congress to “regulate Commerce.”

 

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