SCOTUS Blog Analysis: Health care’s mandate — Part II

SCOTUS Blog: This is one of a continuing series of articles the blog will publish over the next several weeks, explaining more fully the new federal health care law, and the Supreme Court’s review of the constitutionality of key parts of the law.  This article is the third of three on the heart of the new law: the mandate that virtually all Americans obtain health insurance by the year 2014.  Part I (found here) described why Congress adopted the mandate.   Part II (found here discussed the tie between the mandate and expanded health insurance coverage.  This Part III discusses the financial penalty that Congress adopted to enforce the mandate, and how the penalty is to work.  Each of these parts has included discussions of related constitutional questions.   Prior posts in this overall series can be read, in sequence, here and here and here.