United States House of Representatives v. Burwell
United States District Court for the District of Columbia
130 F.Supp.3d 53 (2015)
- Written by Sean Carroll, JD
Facts
Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including a section requiring employers to reduce the cost of health insurance to eligible subscribers. Under the ACA, the federal government would reimburse the insurers with money from the Treasury. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (defendant) spent billions of dollars reimbursing insurers under the ACA. The United States House of Representatives (the House) (plaintiff) sued HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew (defendants). The House relied on Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, which stated that no money could be drawn from the Treasury unless first appropriated by Congress. The House stated that the reimbursement provision authorized legislation even though Congress had not yet appropriated federal money for the reimbursements. The defendants moved to dismiss the case for lack of standing. The defendants contended that HHS was merely implementing the ACA, which the executive branch had authority to do.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Collyer, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 816,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
