Thomas A. Berry
Thomas A. Berry and Charles Brandt
Braidwood Management is a small business that offers a self-insured health plan to around 70 employees. But under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Braidwood is forced to cover “preventive services” that are mandated by the US Preventive Services Task Force (the Task Force), no matter how onerous. Braidwood says this is unconstitutional.
The Task Force is a bureaucratic entity run by expert doctors who were originally appointed by an official ranking below the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS recently purported to change the rules so that Task Force members are now appointed by the HHS secretary. Either way, the ACA empowers the Task Force to issue rules that compel employers to cover various “preventive services” without patient “cost-sharing,” i.e., without copays. Once the Task Force makes a coverage “recommendation,” that determination is, for all practical purposes, binding on private insurers. While the HHS Secretary may delay the date of any such rule taking effect for up to one year, neither he nor the president may review or modify the Task Force’s mandates. What the Task Force says, goes.
Braidwood sued the government, challenging this scheme as unconstitutional. Among other things, Braidwood argued that the Task Force violates Article II’s Appointments Clause because its members are “principal officers” who have not been validly appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The district court largely agreed with Braidwood, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. Now the case is at the Supreme Court.
Cato has filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to affirm the Fifth Circuit. In our brief, we advance two main arguments for why the Task Force, in its current configuration, violates the Appointments Clause.
First, Task Force members are principal officers of the United States who must be appointed by the president with Senate consent. » Read More
https://www.cato.org/blog/officers-who-make-final-decisions-government-must-receive-senate-confirmation