II is submitting not merely one, but two separate brief to the U.S. Supreme Court opposing Obamacare. One will show why the mandate that individuals buy government-approved insurance is unconstitutional. The other, which has now been filed, shows that Obamacare’s Medicaid mandates imposed on states also are unconstitutional.

Both briefs are based on a powerful blend of the Constitution’s original meaning and modern Supreme Court jurisprudence.

I’ll post on the individual mandate brief later. The Medicaid brief addresses a part of Obamacare overshadowed by the individual mandate—but just as damaging to our federal republic, and just as clearly unconstitutional.

Obamacare requires all states to greatly expand government health care or lose ALL Medicaid funding—or at least a portion thereof to be set by the unguided discretion of the bureaucrats in the Department of Health and Human Services. Since federal Medicaid funds are a huge portion of all states’ budgets, the effect is to subordinate state fiscal policy to the whim of federal officials. This is clearly unconstitutional.

Here is what the brief demonstrates:

(1) The Constitution splits sovereignty between federal government (as to enumerated purposes) and state governments (as to all other purposes). This was recognized by the Founders, and is also recognized by the modern Supreme Court.

(2) An unseverable attribute of sovereignty is a concept called “independence.” This also was acknowledged by the Founders and is accepted today by the Supreme Court.

(3) State “independence” in this context means power to make uncoerced, free decisions, based on the desires of the people within those states. Again, this is part of both the Founding-Era record and of modern Supreme Court jurisprudence.

(4) Thus, the Supreme Court protects states from federal bullying. In accordance with the lessons from the ratification debates over the Constitution, the Court has been particularly protective of the states’ financial independence.

(5) The Obamacare Medicaid mandates are FAR more coercive than any federal conditions previously upheld. Indeed, they are more coercive than some federal mandates struck down.

(6) Several factors aggravate these mandates: (a) The Founders EXPRESSLY documented the field of social serves as reserved to the states, free of federal meddling, (b) the sheer size of the punishment for any state that does not knuckle under, (c) Congress’s “in your face” violation of rules previously announced by the Supreme Court, and (d) Obamacare’s grant to unelected federal bureaucrats of uncontrolled power to punish states they don’t like.