NOS. 11-393 & 11-400 In the Supreme Court of the United States _________________ NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS, ET AL., v. KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, ET AL. ___________________ STATES OF FLORIDA, ET AL., v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, ET AL. _____________________ On Writs of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit _____________________ REPLY BRIEF FOR STATE PETITIONERS ON SEVERABILITY _____________________ PAMELA JO BONDI PAUL D. CLEMENT Attorney General of Florida Counsel of Record SCOTT D. MAKAR ERIN E. MURPHY Solicitor General BANCROFT PLLC LOUIS F. HUBENER 1919 M Street, N.W. TIMOTHY D. OSTERHAUS Suite 470 BLAINE H. WINSHIP Washington, DC 20036 Office of the Attorney [email protected] General of Florida (202) 234-0090 The Capitol, Suite PL-01 Tallahassee, FL 32399 (850) 414-3300 March 13, 2012 (Additional Counsel Listed on Inside Cover) GREG ABBOTT JON BRUNING Attorney General of Texas Attorney General P.O. Box 12548 of Nebraska Capitol Station KATHERINE J. SPOHN Austin, TX 78711 Special Counsel to the (512) 475-0131 Attorney General Office of the Attorney General of Nebraska 2115 State Capitol Building Lincoln, NE 68508 (402) 471-2834 ALAN WILSON MARK L. SHURTLEFF Attorney General Attorney General of Utah of South Carolina Capitol Suite #230 P.O. Box 11549 P.O. Box 142320 Columbia, SC 29211 Salt Lake City, UT 84114 LUTHER STRANGE JAMES D. “BUDDY” CALDWELL Attorney General Attorney General of Alabama of Louisiana 501 Washington Avenue P.O. Box 94005 Montgomery, AL 36130 Baton Rouge, LA 70804 BILL SCHUETTE JOHN W. SUTHERS Attorney General Attorney General of Michigan of Colorado P.O. Box 30212 1525 Sherman Street Lansing, MI 48909 Denver, CO 80203 ROBERT M. MCKENNA LAWRENCE G. WASDEN Attorney General Attorney General of Idaho of Washington P.O. Box 83720 1125 Washington Street S.E. Boise, ID 83720 P.O. Box 40100 Olympia, WA 98504 THOMAS W. CORBETT, JR. JOSEPH SCIARROTTA, JR. Governor General Counsel LINDA L. KELLY Office of Arizona Governor Attorney General JANICE K. BREWER Commonwealth of TOM HORNE Pennsylvania Attorney General of Arizona 16th Floor 1700 West Washington Strawberry Square Street, 9th Floor Harrisburg, PA 17120 Phoenix, AZ 85007 MARTY J. JACKLEY WAYNE STENEJHEM Attorney General Attorney General of South Dakota of North Dakota 1302 East Highway 14 State Capitol Pierre, SD 57501 600 East Boulevard Avenue Bismarck, ND 58505 GREGORY F. ZOELLER BRIAN SANDOVAL Attorney General of Indiana Governor of Nevada 302 West Washington Street State Capitol Building Indianapolis, IN 46204 101 North Carson Street Carson City, NV 89701 SAMUEL S. OLENS MICHAEL C. GERAGHTY Attorney General of Georgia Attorney General 40 Capitol Square, SW of Alaska Atlanta, GA 30334 P.O. Box 110300 Juneau, AK 99811 MICHAEL DEWINE MICHAEL B. WALLACE Attorney General of Ohio Counsel for the DAVID B. RIVKIN State of Mississippi LEE A. CASEY by and through Governor Baker & Hostetler LLP PHIL BRYANT Special Counsel Wise Carter Child & 30 East Broad Street Caraway, P.A. 17th Floor P.O. Box 651 Columbus, OH 43215 Jackson, MS 39205 MATTHEW MEAD DEREK SCHMIDT Governor of Wyoming Attorney General of Kansas State Capitol Memorial Hall 200 West 24th Street 120 SW 10th Street Cheyenne, WY 82002 Topeka, KS 66612 WILLIAM J. SCHNEIDER TERRY BRANSTAD Attorney General of Maine Governor of Iowa Six State House Station 107 East Grand Avenue Augusta, ME 04333 Des Moines, IA 50319 J.B. VAN HOLLEN Attorney General of Wisconsin 114 East State Capitol Madison, WI 53702 i QUESTION PRESENTED If the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that virtually every individual obtain insurance exceeds Congress’ enumerated powers, to what extent (if any) can the mandate be severed from the remainder of the Act? ii TABLE OF CONTENTS QUESTION PRESENTED .......................................... i TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ..................................... iii REPLY BRIEF ............................................................ 1 ARGUMENT ............................................................... 3 I. The Court Can And Should Consider Whether The Mandate Is Severable. ................... 3 II. The Individual Mandate Cannot Be Severed From The Balance Of The ACA ............. 8 A. Congress Intended the ACA to Stand or Fall with the Mandate. ............... 9 B. The Mandate Cannot Be Severed from the Core Insurance Regulations. ............................................. 17 CONCLUSION .......................................................... 24 iii TABLE OF AUTHORITIES Cases Alaska Airlines v. Brock, 480 U.S. 678 (1987) ..................................... passim Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of N. New England, 546 U.S. 320 (2006) ............................ 18 Champlin Ref. Co. v. Corp. Comm’n of Okla., 286 U.S. 210 (1932) ............................................. 23 INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1982) ............................................. 19 Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., 158 U.S. 601 (1895) ............................................. 22 Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997) ....................................... 4, 5, 6 Regan v. Time, Inc., 468 U.S. 641 (1984) ............................................. 20 United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005) ........................................... 4, 5 Constitutional and Statutory Provisions U.S. Const. Art. I, cl. 18 ........................................... 21 42 U.S.C. § 300gg-11(a)(2) ....................................... 16 42 U.S.C. § 300gg-18(b)(1) ....................................... 16 42 U.S.C. § 18001 ..................................................... 16 26 U.S.C.A. § 5000A(f)(1)(A)(ii) ............................... 14 I.R.C. § 45R(d)(3)(B) ................................................. 16 iv Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. No. 111-148, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-152 (ACA) ..... passim ACA § 1001 .......................................................... 16 ACA § 1101 .......................................................... 16 ACA § 1421 .......................................................... 16 ACA § 1501(a)(2)(C) ............................................ 10 ACA § 1501(a)(2)(D) ............................................ 10 ACA § 1501(a)(2)(I) ....................................... 19, 20 ACA § 1501(b) ..................................................... 14 ACA § 1512 .......................................................... 13 ACA § 1513 .......................................................... 13 ACA § 2001(a)(4) ................................................. 16 ACA §§ 9003–08 .................................................. 16 Other Authorities Cong. Budget Office, Effects of Eliminating the Individual Mandate to Obtain Health Insurance (June 16, 2010) .................................. 15 Letter from Douglas Elmendorf, Director, Cong. Budget Office, to the Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker, U.S. House of Reps. (March 20, 2010) ................................................ 15 REPLY BRIEF Neither the federal government nor Amicus provides any convincing reason why the Affordable Care Act should stand if the individual mandate that was critical to its passage falls. Indeed, their competing visions of whether the core insurance provisions can survive invalidation of the mandate and the consequences for the remainder of the Act of invalidating both only underscore the interrelatedness of the constituent parts of the ACA and the centrality of the mandate. The reality remains that the individual mandate is the Act’s key demand-side provision, and much of the balance of the Act aims to provide the supply necessary to ensure the near- universal coverage forced by the mandate and desired by Congress. The remainder involves provisions designed to pay for the costly core provisions and miscellany that no one could confidently predict would have been enacted independently of the ACA and its core components. The individual mandate is not some stand-alone “reform” that can be excised while leaving the balance of the ACA intact. Moreover, as Amicus recognizes, once it is conceded that the guaranteed issue and community rating provisions fall with the mandate, then there is no logical stopping point. There is no reason whatsoever to conclude that a Congress motivated to provide insurance to those who wanted it but could not obtain it (and willing to commandeer those who could obtain it but did not want it) would have enacted the ACA. At the outset, the Court should reject the federal government’s novel and narrow conception of 2 severability as a series of discrete challenges to the Act’s remaining provisions, each with its own separate standing requirement. As Amicus acknowledges, severability is a remedial inquiry that follows from a Court’s conclusion that a party with standing to challenge a statutory provision has successfully demonstrated the provision’s unconstitutionality. It is not a separate challenge to the other provisions of the Act that requires separate standing. So long as the challenge to the invalidated provision is properly before the Court (which it is here), so, too, is the severability inquiry. The remedial inquiry focuses not on whether the balance of the Act can function independently (which is a necessary, but hardly sufficient condition) or on whether Congress would have preferred something to nothing, but rather on whether the balance of the Act can function in the manner Congress intended.