United States Ninth Circuit

The district court's judgment in favor of defendant-federal officials in an action alleging a facial constitutional challenge to two provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and seeking a declaration concerning the Arizona Health Care Freedom Act, is: 1) affirmed in part, the holding that that the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, which requires that individuals maintain a minimum level of health insurance coverage or pay a penalty, did not violate a plaintiff's substantive due process right to medical autonomy; 2) affirmed in part, the dismissal, for lack of ripeness, of a plaintiff's challenge to the individual mandate for a violation of his substantive due process rights to informational privacy; 3) affirmed in part, the holding that the Affordable Care Act preempted the Arizona Health Care Freedom Act, which amended the Arizona constitution to make it lawful to abstain from purchasing health insurance without paying any penalty; and 4) vacated in part, where plaintiff's challenge to the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is a new advisory board charged with issuing budget recommendations for the Medicare program in the event that the program exceeded growth projections, should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/07/2014
• Published 08/07/2014

Judges

• GRABER

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel