NEJM Perspective Focuses on Use of SCOTUS Health Care Ruling to Promote Policy Objectives

A New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) perspective essay titled “The Taxing Power and the Public’s Health” asserts that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in a case challenging the validity of the Affordable Care Act opens the door to government using its taxing authority to achieve a range of policy objectives including “interventions to promote public health.” According to the authors, assuming that federal, state and local governments can overcome adverse public sentiment or industry opposition, they could, for example, adopt taxing strategies that provide credits to those with a healthy body mass index (BMI) or proof of BMI improvement.

The October 18, 2012, essay cites the argument made by health care law opponents who invoked the hypothetical of government taxing people who fail to buy broccoli. The authors state, “nothing in [Chief Justice John] Roberts’s opinion stops the government” from imposing such a tax. They conclude, “The Court has highlighted an opportunity for passing creative new public health laws, authorized by the taxing power; this opportunity now awaits its political moment.