Professor Einer Elhauge ‘86 has released an e-book—titled “Obamacare on Trial” —on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act case decided by the Supreme Court.Elhauge raises points that were not aired in the courtroom, including the fact that the constitutional framers themselves had approved mandates to buy health insurance.
Elhauge is a frequent contributor to the discourse on health care in the U.S. Released on Aug. 1, “Obamacare on Trial” gathers a number of his writings from the New York Times, The New Republic, The Atlantic and elsewhere to give a succinct, non-technical analysis of the subject.
HLS Professor Laurence Tribe ‘66 said of the book: “Anyone who cares about the Supreme Court’s approach to constitutional issues—and especially about the claims of some Justices that they try to follow the Constitution’s original meaning—must read Einer Elhauge’s devastating analysis of what all nine Justices, and the hundreds of advocates whose briefs and arguments they studied, simply failed to take into account when the Supreme Court decided the Health Care Case of 2012.”
Said HLS Professor Lawrence Lessig: “Elhauge asked a brilliant and devastatingly simple question of the Supreme Court’s so-called ‘originalists.’ They simply ignored it. This beautiful book tells a story history won’t forget.”
HLS Professor Jonathan Zittrain ’95 said: “Elhauge’s lucid account of the battle over health care mandates seeks answers to important questions wherever they may lie, without letting policy preferences or political ideology drive outcomes. That’s a rare and refreshing approach. He re-inspires confidence in the notion that the Constitution’s principles can unite people with disparate views, rather than being bent by a bare majority to whatever preordained task is at hand.”
On Tuesday, Sept. 25, Elhauge, the founding faculty director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, will moderate a debate on American healthcare reform, at HLS. The debate will feature John McDonough, official surrogate of the Obama campaign and director of the Center for Public Health Leadership at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Oren Cass, domestic policy director for the Romney campaign. The speakers will discuss what each candidate would mean for the future of healthcare policy in the U.S.
The event is co-sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center, the HLS Democrats, HLS Republics, and the HLS American Constitution Society.
An expert in antitrust, contracts, and health care law, Elhauge served as chairman of the Antitrust Advisory Committee for the Obama campaign and is the author of several books, including “Statutory Default Rules” and “United States Antitrust Law & Economics.” Most recently, he edited and contributed to the “Research Handbook on the Economics of Antitrust Law” (Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. 2012). He is the founder director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics.
“Obamacare on Trial” is available on Kindle, Nook, Smashwords and will be available on other platforms soon. It is also available in paperback.