The Supreme Court's Two-Front War on the Safety Net: A Cautionary Tale for Health Care Reformers

ACS is pleased to distribute an Issue Brief by Simon Lazarus and Harper Jean Tobin, attorneys with the National Senior Citizens Law Center, entitled, The Supreme Court's Two-Front War on the Safety Net: A Cautionary Tale for Health Care Reformers. In this Issue Brief, Lazarus and Tobin argue that over the last half-century, critical components of the nation's health care safety net have been seriously undermined by the Supreme Court. The authors contend that through a contradictory approach to the boundaries between federal and state power, the conservative bloc on the Court has sought to constrain Congress' power to enact progressive legislation and citizens' ability to enforce federal statutory rights in court, while at the same time using the preemption doctrine to strike down state protections. The authors see in these antithetical doctrinal trends a "transparently ideological, deregulatory agenda."