# Justices signal possible trouble for health insurance mandate **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 27, 2012, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justices-signal-possible-trouble-for-health-insurance-mandate/616961 "2012-03-27T17:11:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 201
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justices-signal-possible-trouble-for-health-insurance-mandate/616961/201 "2012-04-01T18:13:33Z")
They don’t have to analyze it under the ICC, though. Regardless of how it was framed, the penalty underlying the individual mandate is either a tax or it isn’t. If it’s a tax, it falls under the taxing and spending power regardless of what constitutional provision Congress overtly relied on in enacting it. From [the Petitioners’ (Government’s) SCOTUS brief on the individual mandate (the “minimum coverage” provision)](http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/briefs/11-398_petitioner.authcheckdam.pdf): > [@](#): > > In “passing on the constitutionality of a tax law,” a court is “concerned only with its practical operation, not its definition or the precise form of descriptive words which may be applied to it.” Nelson v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 312 U.S. 359, 363 (1941). --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/justices-signal-possible-trouble-for-health-insurance-mandate/616961)._