Supreme Court and Law

¶ … Branches

When it comes to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, all three branches of the United States government play their own role when it comes to this enacted legislation. Beyond that, the idea of federalism and federal supremacy clearly come into play given that the states are largely at the mercy and whim of what the federal government mandates. Even with that, the individual parts of the government at both levels and the roles that they have to play (at the federal level in particular) need to be mentioned and covered. While there has been a lot of acrimony and testy exchanges when it comes to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the program is established and verified law in the United States right now and there is not any current prospects of that changing.

Analysis

As noted in the introduction, there are three distinct parts of the United States government and each of them play their own part when it comes to the PPACA. The President is the party who signed the law, that being President Barack Obama. A new President coming into the picture in early 2017 will not change that, at least not in and of itself. Beyond that, the President is the person who leads his Cabinet of executives and advisors. When it comes to the PPACA, the most important party would be the leader of the Department of Health and Human Services. Indeed, the purview and rights given to operate and run the law as written center largely on that agency and what the laws of the land allow them to do. As for Congress, their major duties when it comes to the PPACA is to enact new laws and provisions as needed to mold and shape the PPACA. Beyond that, they would also be using their committees and other apparatuses to regulate and monitor what is resulting from the passing and enforcement of the PPACA. They would exercise oversight and would use the results from the same to make changes or at least propose them. At the end of the day, no amount of acrimony will change what the law says and, generally, what is done in response to the same unless the law is somehow rendered changed by an agreed upon act of Congress or a Supreme Court ruling.

Speaking of the Supreme Court, they represent the third and final part of the federal government and that would be the judiciary. Generally speaking, the Supreme Court's job has been to interpret the law as written and whether it passes Constitutional muster. This relates both to the law itself and any desired or demanded exceptions to the law. Indeed, there was one legal challenge where it was asserted that the law itself should not stand and thus the PPACA should be dissolved because it requires that people buy insurance and thus it violates the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court found that there were no grounds to strike the law on this basis. On the other hand, private corporation Hobby Lobby demanded an exception that allowed for them to not offer certain birth control healthcare options because of their ethics and religious freedom. The Supreme Court found in their favor mostly because of their private status and the rights that they enjoy due to the same (NCC Staff, 2015).